The Memory Casket
by ninepen
Summary: When he escaped, they expected him to lash out. They expected him to cause chaos. What happened wasn't what they expected at all. But Loki always has a plan. And he's never liked to be predictable, so chaos might just be involved after all. When Loki takes drastic action, who will pay the price?
1. Prologue - On This Page

The Memory Casket_ is an alternate to my main story _Beneath_, taking place after _The Avengers_. It can be read entirely independently of my other stories; more below on how it fits with them._

_The please-nobody-sue-me part: I have no claims to anything in the Marvel universe. I make no profit off this. I am grateful to all those who gave us_ Thor_ and _The Avengers_ which provide such an amazing canvas on which we can paint our own imaginations._

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_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 1: Prologue - On This Page**

Loki sat at the desk of the cottage he'd purchased in a quiet village on Alfheim for his last month. He'd planned on a month, at least, but after two days changed his mind and decided he could only tolerate a week. A week to be certain. A week to reflect. A week to prepare.

He withdrew five sheets of plain white paper from the shallow center drawer. He dipped the pen in the tiny enchanted pot at the back of the weathered wooden desk to prime the ink.

The first was easy. He'd thought of the words long ago, while pacing in an Asgardian prison. Repeated them like a mantra as his eyes shot daggers at Odin during his sentencing. Seared them into his brain as he waited through the first two years of his six hundred fifty year sentence – one hundred fifty to ensure no Midgardian who'd been alive when he led an attack on their realm would still be alive when he was released, and an additional five hundred because he refused to assist in repairing the damage done on Midgard and Jotunheim. Early in the third year he'd finally managed to escape.

He folded the paper twice, and in his smooth methodical handwriting wrote "For Odin" on the outside.

He took a second sheet of paper. This one was also easy. The words had come to him along with his plan, in the second year of his imprisonment. The precise wording he'd refined over time, so that now they nearly wrote themselves, Loki's hands a mere instrument to channel his control over another man's fate.

He folded it twice, wrote "For Thor," pictured Thor's face, and passed a hand over the paper to enchant it to reveal its words only to its intended recipient.

He took a third sheet of paper. This one was much more difficult. This one he'd avoided thinking about. This one…the decision to write it had been difficult. It took him nearly three hours and he was exhausted by the time he was done. He folded the paper twice, wrote "For Frigga," and enchanted it both to be read only by her and to never yellow or fade.

Having gone through his original five sheets of paper and two more, Loki pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the desk drawer and set it in front of him. He wrote just a few words and set the paper aside.

He pulled one last sheet of paper from the drawer. On this page he wrote, in large, clear lettering, "Do not look back." He folded it and wrote on it in the same pattern as the first three. He looked at this paper and frowned, for it was not quite right. After a moment he ran his thumb over the name, pulling up the ink and returning it to the pot. In the newly white space he wrote the word "you." The letters lacked their usual precision; he'd been unable to keep his hand completely steady.

That done, Loki arranged his few belongings and moved out to the porch. Much simpler than anything he'd had on Asgard, he nevertheless was quite fond of it, its weather-beaten pale wooden planks, piled stone columns, solid stone rail ringing the area. It was a beautiful night, a cool breeze washing him in fresh air scented vaguely with pines from the nearby wood, a three-quarter blue-tinged white moon casting a gentle light over the grounds. He looked down at his attire – soft brown leather boots that reached no higher than his ankles, leather pants so old there were small cracks in the knees and random scratches elsewhere, a thin forest green tunic with bands of heavier and darker green material at each edge. He thought about going back in to find his leather vest, but he wanted to spend what little time he had left out here, and it wasn't really that cold.

He leaned over the sun-bleached stone rail, looked out over the extensive lawn and garden, and waited for the suns to rise.

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_This story__ idea grabbed me and wouldn't let me go (8/8/13). It'll _be relatively short (compared to Beneath_!), and the plot constrained. I can't promise how quickly I'll update it (_Beneath_ remains the priority, this only squeezes in on the edges...like lunch break), only that I'll finish it. It's going up (versus the other ones I've mentioned, for those of you who are reading _Beneath_) because of its smaller scale and pretty simple plot. (I said "simple"...not "straightforward"!)  
_

_This is "my" same Loki, Thor, Frigga, Odin, etc. So all my other pre-Thor stories are "canon" for this story as well, but not _Beneath_. Odin chose a different punishment in this story. It's obviously not working out terribly well. This story was partly inspired by a particular passage from _Beneath_, as well as, very vaguely, the images - that crush my heart into microscopic bits - of Loki being imprisoned like "another stolen relic" in the _Thor 2_ trailer._

_The image I'm using for the story is from Wikipedia. It will be explained later._

_Your comments/questions are most welcome, and if the PM option is there I'll always respond._


	2. Circle of Destruction

_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 2: Circle of Destruction**

Thor bolted upright in bed to a persistent banging at his door, its sound carried all the way back to his bedchamber on a wisp of magic. He pulled a robe on over his sleepwear and ran to the main door. "Yes, what is it?" he asked, his voice still gruff with sleep.

Trygvi, one of the Einherjar who regularly served on his floor, snapped to attention. "Lord Heimdall has found him." His posture was perfect and unmoving, but his voice was breathless with the excitement of the news.

Thor was speechless for a moment, but quickly recovered and thanked the guard before disappearing back into his chambers to quickly dress. There would be no more sleep tonight.

A horse was ready for him when he exited the palace, already in his full armor, ready for whatever was to come. He took the reins and hurried to the bridge, slowing a bit when he turned and saw his mother and father also on horseback, following him. It gave him a moment to look down and appreciate the renewed beauty of the bridge as it lit up with every hoof fall. When he neared the gleaming rebuilt observatory he pulled gently on the reins and dismounted once his steed had halted, his parents right behind him doing the same.

Heimdall stood steadfast and calm, sword held out before him in both hands but pointed straight down, a comforting presence amidst the current uncertainty.

"What have you seen, Heimdall?" Odin asked, his free hand brushing Frigga's, barely visible in the folds of the beige wool cloak she'd thrown on over a simple pale blue gown.

"He is on Alfheim. He is taking a meal in a small isolated dwelling outside a village."

"With whom?" Odin asked.

"He is alone."

"Is he well?" Frigga asked.

"I see nothing wrong with him."

"What else have you seen, Heimdall? What trickery has he planned? What traps has he laid?" Thor asked. If Loki had stopped hiding himself from Heimdall's sight, there had to be a reason. He had feared Loki was badly injured…not sitting down to dinner.

"He was pulling weeds from a garden in front of the dwelling when I first found him. After I sent for you he went inside and finished preparing the meal he now eats. A vegetable stew."

"Weapons?" Thor pressed, uninterested in Loki's eating habits.

"A knife on the kitchen counter. Another on a bedside table. That is all that is visible to me."

Thor nodded; each of them knew Loki could have many more knives than what happened to be visible at the moment. In fact, while a kitchen knife was one thing, it was unusual for Loki to leave any of his knives out in the open. "Father?"

Odin moved his hand away from Frigga's and tilted Gungnir toward it. In his hand appeared a familiar pair of manacles. Frigga looked away as he held them out to Thor. "Bring him back, Son."

Thor nodded deeply enough to call it a bow then started in toward the observatory, Heimdall stepping aside for him, then following him in.

"Open space abounds near the dwelling. I will direct you to right in front of it." Heimdall waited until Thor stood before the aperture, then thrust the sword into its slot in the center of the observatory. The golden spherical shell surrounding them began to spin, and soon Thor felt the familiar pull, gentle next to the tesseract they'd been forced to use for transport until very recently, and soon was flying through a blaze of colored light and crackling energy.

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Thor planted his feet on the ground, the bifrost's light fading quickly around him, the moist compacted dirt beneath his feet still glowing in a few places from the impact of so much energy. He gripped Mjolnir in his right hand and the manacles in his left as his eyes swept the area before him. The dwelling before him was small and squat, made of a mixture of light-colored wood and lighter-colored stone. Five wooden steps led up to a small open porch area that spanned the width of the structure, and just beyond that a simple wooden door. Behind that door was Loki. Thor took a deep breath, gripped Mjolnir even tighter, and took a step forward.

As he took his second, the door swung open and Loki burst through it. Loki gaped at him, then beyond him, but Thor refused to fall for any of his tricks and kept his eyes fixed on his brother. He might not have recognized him had he not already known exactly who was in this dwelling. His hair was cut short and hung in loose waves about his face, and he wore a simple fitted shirt with sleeves that barely went past his shoulders, and dark high-waisted, belted cloth pants, all of it a typical Ljosalf style. And his shirt was red.

Thor resumed his approach with a third step when Loki finally spoke up.

"What is this? You've destroyed my cabbages!"

Thor froze again. _Cabbages?!_ He stole a half-second's glance back at the spot Loki stared at, and realized he'd arrived in some kind of vegetable garden. "I don't know what game you're playing, but you're coming with me," Thor said, advancing on Loki yet again.

Loki looked at him in fear and began stepping backwards. Suddenly he flew into motion, darting back inside the cottage and slamming the door behind him. Thor flew into motion as well, racing up the stairs and onto the porch. He pushed at the door and found it wouldn't budge. He pushed harder, suspected Loki had strengthened it with magic, then swung Mjolnir twice and smashed it through the door, snapping and splintering the wood. He lowered his head and charged through, finding himself in an open airy room with large windows, a few pieces of wood furniture, and a small stone-lined fireplace. A clatter came from a chamber to the left, behind another closed door.

Thor spun Mjolnir and let it fly him across the room, not wasting time attempting to open the door by hand this time and simply letting Mjolnir pull him crashing right through it. His feet came down gently from centuries of practice, bits of wood from the door and its frame flying around him. He stood in a chamber with a desk, a chair, a bed, and Loki with one leg hanging outside an open window and a large dark green cloth bag slung onto his back. Their eyes met briefly, before Loki swung his other leg over and tumbled outside.

Unwilling to let his brother out of his sight long enough to run back to the smashed front door – for any second out of sight was a chance for Loki to create a duplicate and escape – and knowing he wouldn't fit as easily through this window as his brother with his lithe, slender form, Thor swung Mjolnir back then brought it around hard against the thick stone wall next to the window. Rock and dust exploded outward, and with a second strike the entire wall to the left of the window collapsed and Thor strode through the settling debris as the wood-framed roof creaked dangerously overhead.

Loki, who'd been dashing toward a cluster of trees, stared at him with wide eyes and tripped over his own feet, but quickly pushed himself back up, and it was then that Thor caught the glint of the knife in the moonlight. Loki crouched into a fighting stance, but he was off balance from the bag that was now hanging off his arm instead of resting against his back.

Thor rushed forward, his eyes on the knife in Loki's right hand. Loki reared back with the knife, ready to strike, and just before reaching him Thor was suddenly convinced that _this_ was a duplicate and Loki was still inside the building, having made himself invisible. He slowed his momentum, not wanting to be made a fool of and taunted yet again for trusting his eyes, but it was too late to stop it completely and Mjolnir slammed into Loki's side, greeting real flesh and bone, ribs giving way just as doors and wall had.

Loki screamed and immediately crumpled, the knife slipping from his grasp before he could complete an attempt to strike uselessly at the armor on Thor's arm. While he lay on the grass stunned, Thor put his boot down over the knife and bent over Loki with the shackles, getting them closed over both wrists before Loki looked up at him. Thor's own eyes went wide and he stumbled backward two steps when Loki finally raised his head and fixed him with an expression of abject fear the likes of which he hadn't seen in over a thousand years, when Thor thought Loki had tried to kill him and had flown into a rage and sought to return the favor.

In that brief moment of Thor's distraction Loki lunged forward and grabbed the knife, freed from under Thor's boot. In a flash he'd risen up on his knees and managed to drive the blade into Thor's thigh, but before he could withdraw it to do worse damage elsewhere, Thor reached down and hooked his left hand under Loki's right arm and jerked him to his feet; a deep moan was wrenched from his brother, who swayed unsteadily once upright.

"I expected more of a fight out of you," Thor said, keeping his grip tight on Loki's bare arm.

"So sorry to disappoint," his brother said, breathing shakily. "I'd be perfectly willing…to try to give…a more impressive show…if you'd care to release me."

"This truly is no more than a game to you, isn't it? You-" Thor stopped himself then. Loki hadn't used his knives or his magic to any real effect, but his other main weapon, his words, remained unchecked. He wasn't going to fall for Loki's tricks, his attempts to manipulate and control through clever words. He tugged on Loki's arm, and when Loki refused to walk, he pulled him around the side of the cabin with his feet dragging behind him, up to the front, to the vegetable garden where the marks of the bifrost were scorched into the earth.

Loki abruptly twisted in his Thor's grip and managed to get his left hand down near the hilt of the knife, but Thor easily bucked his frame and jolted Loki's hand away, causing him to give a brief cry of pain at the jostling of his ribs. Thor grabbed the chain between Loki's manacles and pulled it taut, then leaned down close into Loki, his nose almost touching his brother's. "Walk, or I will drag you behind me through the dirt. One way or another, you're coming back with me. Don't make it any worse for yourself than it already is. Please," he added, his voice truly pleading. He would do what he had to, but he didn't enjoy treating his brother this way.

He watched as Loki's eyes stared back at him defiantly – trying to come up with a means of escape, Thor knew – but Loki had no more magic, if he had more knives he would have used them by now, and he had no other real options for standing against the physically stronger Thor. All at once Loki's face relaxed, his arms no longer pulled against his restraints, and his gaze dropped to the ground. He had surrendered.

Thor released some of the slack in the chain and started forward again, Loki close behind him. He stepped over a flattened and still smoldering cabbage and, looking down at it, realized that Loki had lost one of his shoes somewhere along the way in the scuffle and now wore just one soft leather Ljosalf shoe that came to a squared-off point at the toe. His eyes traveled slowly up his brother's form, taking in again his strange dress, his short oddly-styled hair. He thought of how easily he'd just captured him, how Loki hadn't been hiding himself from Heimdall. And he knew something was wrong.

"Heimdall, we're ready!" he called out from the same place he'd started, hoping he hadn't just made a terrible mistake.

/

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_Wow, I was stunned at the quick response to the last chapter in terms of follows and favorites, given how short it is also. It seems many of you are also reading _Beneath_, so I take that as a statement of trust that I just hope I live up to here! "Gildenstern," I am still kind of surprised anyone likes my plots, too, to be honest! I have always known I can string a few words together and make them sound nice. What I have never known was if I could tell a good story (that anyone besides me would like). So thank you, thank you all so much. Really._

_This was a quick update because I had almost three chapters completed when I posted the first one. The rest won't be so quick, probably. Though I did get some lunch break writing done today on Ch. 4! Still keeping it mysterious here...hope you enjoyed, hope I got your imagination to churning up some ideas. ;-)_

_In the next chapter, Thor gets his prisoner back to Asgard..._


	3. Reunion

_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 3: Reunion**

When they emerged in the new observatory Loki immediately began to struggle again, but Thor merely pulled tighter on the chain and his struggling did him little good. Heimdall withdrew his sword from the controls, then turned his attention on Loki, fixing the younger man with a stare that almost dared him to try to escape. Loki yanked hard on his chain and wound up spinning around and fighting to stay on his feet; Thor caught a flash of wild-eyed panic on his face.

_Where is his smugness? His smirk? His arrogance? His condescension?_ Thor didn't know, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, either. Loki was injured, and with his magic separated from him, he would need a healer to ensure the fastest and most effective recovery. He would need Eir. Thor was struck by a sense of déjà vu, for it wasn't that long since the last time he'd brought Loki home in chains, looking well but in need of treatment.

"The king and queen await you just outside. And Eir has been notified."

"Thank you, Heimdall," Thor said, then turned to Loki, who had calmed down somewhat. "You remember your two options."

"You're making a terrible mistake. You don't-"

"Do not speak again or I will ask Father for the gag as well. No one wants to hear more of your lies. Now _move_," Thor said, reaching behind Loki and giving him a firm push to the back.

Loki stumbled forward a step, then swung his head around and narrowed his eyes, and there was that cold look of hatred and barely controlled fury that Thor had come to know so well. Still, Loki clearly knew better than to resist at this stage and did what he was told.

"Mother, don't," Thor said when they reached Odin and Frigga, and Frigga instinctively stepped forward to embrace Loki as though the younger prince were coming back from a heroic quest rather than standing before her in fetters. "He's injured," he explained. "He drew a knife, and I used Mjolnir."

She nodded and stayed back. "He _used_ a knife," she said after her eyes made a quick examination of them both.

Thor looked down, saw the hilt and a portion of the blade still protruding from his leg. He'd been aware of the sting but forgotten the knife was still there.

"I'll come see you in the Healing Room," she said to Loki. "I realize you don't want to be here, but…but I'm glad you're back. I…I…"

"Frigga," Odin murmured, and Thor saw the shifting of the fabric of his mother's cloak and knew that his father's hand had surreptitiously sought his mother's.

Thor started to spin Mjolnir, ready to grab Loki and fly them both over to the Healing Room, when he instead fell still at the sight of Loki's mouth agape, his eyes darting from person to person.

"Frigga," Loki repeated softly, the syllables sounding strange on his lips in place of _Mother_, the only one of them he hadn't denied as family, though even from her he had remained distant. His demeanor changed again, his expression more confident, his eyebrows going up with the rest of his head, as though he'd at last comprehended one of life's great truths. "I'd wondered when you would come," he said, still glancing among each of them. "I certainly didn't expect it to happen like this," he added, his eyes then dropping down to the manacles and chain, Thor's burly hand wrapped around it.

"How exactly did you _expect_ it to happen, then, Brother?" Thor asked, even though he knew he shouldn't engage Loki like this. It never went well.

Loki furrowed his brow and glanced down at his bound hands again, making Thor tense beside him. He gave a short, dry laugh. "I really haven't a clue, I suppose." He paused for a brief moment. "Thor?"

"What?"

Loki nodded and turned to his father. "And that makes you Odin."

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He watched as looks of confusion mixed with suspicion passed over Thor's and Odin's faces, while in Frigga's narrowed eyes he thought he also detected concern. Were he not shackled and helpless –he _might_ be able to do some damage if he could get his hands on that knife still protruding from his captor's lower thigh, if his "brother" would just loosen his grip on that chain a bit – he thought he might find the whole thing entertaining.

"I am many things, Loki," Odin finally said. "To you, I am both king and father, no matter how much you seek to deny both. And you have defied me yet again as both subject and son. You know that you must be punished for that, and not lightly."

He took a deep breath and swallowed. There was indeed a certain dramatic value in the scene playing out before him, that made some strange part of him smile on the inside – and maybe just a bit on the outside, too – but talk of _punished-and-not-lightly_ quickly rid him of any and all smiles. This wasn't a drama, it was his life. He wished to avoid _punished-and-not-lightly._ Somehow, from this stern-looking one-eyed man, his "father," his "king" no less, he expected punishment would be rather enthusiastic.

"Wait," he said, quickly glancing between his captor and his king. "Does that mean I'm a prince?"

Thor made some sort of growling sound deep in his throat and he felt the wind pick up and the next thing he knew Thor's arm was hooked around his back and pulling him close and he was flying over the long bridge he'd just been standing on and thinking he probably shouldn't have said that. His "brother," he knew, was also perfectly capable of doling out _punished-and-not-lightly._ He felt it every time he breathed.

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"He's dressed so strangely," Frigga murmured, hovering just inside the private chamber of the Healing Room Loki had been taken to. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen his bare arms, or feet in shoes other than boots or, on rare occasion, leather sandals. But she knew she hadn't seen him wear red, certainly not that shade of it, since it had been designated Thor's color upon his tenth birthday.

Thor merely nodded, his eyes fixed on Loki. Frigga doubted he'd even heard her. It was simpler for her, in a way. She'd always known the truth of Loki's heritage by birth; she hadn't had to come to terms with it as Thor had. And she was a mother. She loved Loki unconditionally, and free of the jealousies and rivalries that had come to mark her sons' relationship as brothers; she suspected she was the only person in all the Nine Realms that Loki still had any trust in at all. Still, simpler did not mean less painful. Loki kissed her cheek while planning an escape that had injured three Einherjar, one of them just barely surviving a particularly nasty stabbing.

Eir was tending to Loki, as she had so many times before. Thor had insisted the shackles suppressing Loki's ability to use magic not be removed, so Eir had just been lifting a pair of scissors to Loki's tunic when she and Odin had arrived.

"This is my favorite shirt," Loki had protested from his bed, drawing his arms up from his sides to protect his chest and the shirt covering it.

Eir had put the scissors away and, once he moved his arms again, simply rolled up his shirt and bunched it up high under his arms. A nasty bruise was forming on his left side, about the length of Mjolnir's head.

"Would you take that from me as well, Brother?" Thor had asked quietly beside Frigga, more of a statement than a question. Frigga didn't think Thor really cared if Loki wore red or not; it was simply not done, and coming from Loki, with Loki's current attitude, Thor would see it as a deliberate insult. An intentional provocation.

Loki had looked up at him strangely. "The shirt? I'm fairly certain it doesn't belong to you, since the fabric isn't all warped out of shape. But if you want it, it's all yours, Brother." Frigga had watched as Loki then visually inspected Thor from head to toe and back again. "Are you sure we're brothers?" he'd asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Thor had forced out as his jaw tightened.

Frigga had circled her arm around his then. She knew it was getting harder for him to continue to claim Loki as his brother in the face of Loki's betrayals and unwavering rejecting. When Loki's sentence was over – assuming it would _ever_ be over given what had just happened – she would still have two sons…but she wasn't sure either of them would have a brother.

Eir had quickly proclaimed Loki to be in no danger – his ribs were only cracked, not broken – and Odin had promptly left. There were others who needed to know Loki had been recaptured. There was punishment to be decided on. Again.

Loki suddenly gave a shout. "That's enough," he said, pushing himself further up the bed.

"I'm not done, my prince."

"If I'm your prince, then I say you _are_ done."

Thor was moving forward before Loki finished speaking, just as Loki was shifting to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. "Show some respect, Loki. If Eir says she isn't done, then she isn't done. You remain a prince, but you also remain a prisoner."

Frigga couldn't see Loki well with Thor standing between her and him, so she didn't see exactly what else passed between them, but Thor's hands went to Loki's shoulders and Loki was soon settling back into place on the bed. Eir went back to work, and although a few grunts came from Loki he didn't try to get up again, one hand still on his shoulder to encourage him to stay put. Frigga removed her cloak and draped it over a chair, too anxious to sit.

"_Now_ I'm done," Eir said a few minutes later, lowering Loki's tunic. "The area may be tender for a day or two, but I've healed the cracks and reduced the bruising and you can move about normally."

"The only place you're going to be moving is back to your cell," Thor said, his voice low and rumbling, as Eir gave a polite bow and left.

"Thor," Frigga said, coming up alongside her eldest and placing a gently restraining hand on the arm that had reached out to clamp down on Loki's. She hadn't embraced her youngest yet, and she wanted to do so here, where for a moment she could pretend he'd been injured during training with Thor and the other warriors, that he was an honored Prince of Asgard and not an escaped convict guilty of crimes against three realms.

She took Loki's hands and gave them a gentle tug, urging him off the raised bed so she could more easily reach him. He stood and stretched a little to the side, testing his repaired ribs, and her arms reached out for him as they had for over a thousand years, her neck angling upward to press her cheek to his, to kiss him.

She never got that far. As soon as her arms made it around his sides he recoiled from her, and Thor, no doubt anxious over another potential escape attempt, was there in a flash behind Loki, big hands firmly over bare forearms. Loki struggled in his grasp for a moment before falling still.

Frigga stared, trying to keep her face neutral. Never – _never! _– had Loki reacted to her in such a manner. Even when he'd been dragged back from Midgard full of nothing but contempt and spite, even then he'd allowed her embrace. He hadn't returned it, but she'd felt his cheek press lightly against hers and she knew he still loved her. Now he looked, if anything, nervous.

"I'm sorry. You startled me," he said then, his face breaking into a big smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"It's all right," Frigga said, leaning forward and tentatively kissing his cheek. He didn't flinch, but neither did he press his cheek to hers. When she stepped away again, Thor released his arms.

"Well," Loki said, giving his arms a shake then walking over to retrieve the large green cloth bag he'd arrived with, that had been on the floor next to the bed. He tossed it over his shoulder. "This has been such an _interesting_ reunion, but if it's all the same to you, I'll be…" He'd lifted his hands to chin level and run them down in front of him. "I'll just be…" He repeated the motion. He did it a third time, looking down at himself with a pained expression. "This usually works…"

"You'll be going?" Thor supplied. "Was that what you wanted to say? It's been little more than two years since you last wore them, Loki, have you truly forgotten what those shackles do? You can't cloak yourself, and if you did somehow make it past me, the Einherjar have sealed off this wing. You won't escape again."

Frigga watched carefully as Loki glanced between the metal surrounding his wrists and Thor with growing horror. He started pulling at them, trying to tug them off, and Thor made no move to stop him. He knew Loki had no chance of getting them off himself.

After a moment Frigga stilled Loki's hands with her own; he would rub his fingers and wrists raw at this rate. "Thor, give us a moment alone," she said, her eyes still on Loki.

"Mother…"

"Just a moment. I wish to speak with him in private. And you need to get a healing stone and take care of your leg."

Her eldest hesitated a few seconds more, then turned and left them.

"How are you feeling now, my little one? Really. Do you have any other injuries?" she asked as soon as they were alone.

"No, I'm fine. The healer treated me very well. Thank you," he said with a smile and a nod that sent his dark hair falling forward into his face.

"Good. In that case, you'll want to see your sister. She's been worried," Frigga said, taking a deep breath that turned into a yawn. She arched her back into a stretch, and rested her hands on her hips.

Loki's eyes widened, but only briefly, and then he was nodding. "Yes, I'd like that."

"I thought you might," Frigga responded, then rushed at Loki, her left hand pressing hard into his chest, her right hand whipping around to the small dagger that was sheathed at the small of her back and hidden by pale blue cloth. By the time Loki could react with anything more than a startled gasp she had pushed him all the way back against the wall and the tip of the blade was pressed against his throat.

He started to say something, but the movement of his throat made the blade prick his skin.

"Who are you and what have you done with my son?" Frigga demanded, her voice as hard and unyielding as her grip on the dagger.

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/

_You know I couldn't help myself with the _Avengers _quote..._

_Another quick update, but seriously, it will almost certainly not stay this quick. Chalk this up to a head-start at the beginning and, um, a boring meeting at work. Shhh. Don't tell._

_Next up, Ch. 4 "Of Moles and Men": Differences of opinion arise over who exactly Thor has brought home._


	4. Of Moles and Men

_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 4: Of Moles and Men**

Frigga slowly pulled back the dagger just enough that Loki – or the man pretending to be Loki – could answer without injuring himself. A pinprick of blood was left behind, not enough to drip.

He swallowed once, twice, his throat barely avoiding the blade as it bobbed. Frigga did not even blink. He glanced down at the dagger, then back up at her. "And here I thought you were the nice one."

Frigga didn't react, and didn't relent. If this were her Loki, she knew what the reaction from him meant – it was a stalling tactic, while he decided how to respond. "I asked you a question. And I expect an answer."

"Then I'll-"

Frigga's eyes stayed on the man in the red tunic, while his eyes looked off to the door to her left, where Thor had just entered.

Thor started forward but quickly halted. "What did he do?" he asked.

"Nothing. Stay where you are," she said quietly, intending to resolve the dilemma she knew Thor was facing – his desire to step in to restrain Loki in case he'd become violent, and his fear that if he did step in and Loki lashed out she could be accidentally hurt. "I am still waiting. Do not try my patience."

"I…you're right. I'm not him," he said, his focus slowly shifting back to the more immediate threat. "I was paid," he said, then gave a nervous laugh. "Not nearly enough for this."

"Who paid you?" Frigga asked.

"Loki."

"What madness are you speaking now, Loki? Mother, let me get him back to his cell. This is too much of a risk."

"No," Frigga and the captive said at the same time. "Not yet," she added. "Explain yourself." The dagger was still in place, perhaps two fingers' width from the man's flesh.

"I…he came to me. Found me. On Vanaheim. Said I looked just like him, or almost. He changed my appearance a little to more closely match his. He said these three people were after him, and they might come after me. I was to be a decoy, to help him escape to deeper hiding. All I had to do was go along with the ruse, pretend to be him for a few days. He didn't tell me he might nearly get killed by his overzealous brother who carries a giant hammer around with him. You _wrecked_ my home," he added as an aside, his eyes again finding Thor for a moment with an expression of annoyance that looked all too familiar. "He didn't say anything about 'punished-and-not-lightly.' So…now that you've figured it all out… It was the sister, wasn't it? There _is_ no sister."

"There is no sister," Frigga confirmed. The false Loki looked vaguely disappointed in himself. She lowered the dagger and stepped back. She wouldn't have used it, especially when she hadn't been sure. Not when she _still_ wasn't. How many times had Loki looked her right in the eye and lied? How many times had she turned a blind eye and believed, because it was easier that way. Because she _loved_ him.

"Well, the scam is over, best of luck finding the real Loki. Good to see what a _heartwarming_ welcome he'll find here. I'm sorry to have troubled you. Can I go home now?" the imposter asked, his lips pushing up into a hopeful smile, his eyebrows similarly lifting.

Frigga hesitated. There was no light in his eyes for her, no evidence even of the distant, reserved affection he'd shown her over the two years of his imprisonment. But physically he _looked_ exactly like Loki.

"Mother," Thor said, stepping forward again, and when Frigga looked his way she realized Eir had returned, but had been hidden behind Thor in the doorway. "You cannot trust him. You _know_ what a talented liar he is. He nearly killed his guards, and now he's trying to simply _talk_ his way into another escape. His appearance may be odd, but I know my brother. This _is_ Loki."

_And I know my son, and this is _not_ Loki,_ Frigga thought.

"Killed? I…no. No, I'm not taking the blame for killing anyone," the imposter said, his eyes now flitting between Thor and the door just beyond him.

"You fret over three you _nearly_ killed now? You killed over a thousand on Midgard, Loki. And we'll never know exactly how many you killed in your attempt to destroy Jotunheim," Thor accused, his temper threatening to burst through the dam of his self-control.

Frigga thought at first Loki's – the imposter's – face reflected disbelief. But it quickly transformed to an expression of horror. The skin around his eyes was pulled especially taut, making lines that weren't normally there, and his jaw fell slightly open. Frigga felt tears coming to her eyes, because this, _precisely_ this, was what she'd wanted to see on her son's face all along – some realization, comprehension, of what horrific, cruel things he'd done, to see him show some emotion, _any_ emotion over it, any reaction other than smug self-satisfaction and regret that he hadn't had more success. And here it was. Exactly what she'd longed for. On the face of a complete stranger who could be Loki's identical twin.

"No," he was saying – it had started as a mumble and developed into a word, repeated again and again. "No, no, no, no. This is…no. I won't carry this burden. It isn't mine to bear. You must let me leave. I didn't do this," he insisted, his breaths growing louder, heavier, faster, his hand clenched around the strap of his bag.

"There is a way to test it," Eir said, stepping more fully out from behind Thor.

"Yes?" Frigga asked, eyes immediately fixed on Asgard's First Healer. _Yes, of course! Of course, there must be._

"The mole, Your Majesty."

Frigga stared blankly for a moment. _Mole…?_

"It's been so long. Have you forgotten, my queen? May I…?"

"Please," Frigga said with a nod. She had trusted Eir with their family's deepest secret, and with her boys' lives more than once. If Eir had a test in mind, Frigga would allow it without question.

"Turn around, Loki. Or…whatever your true name is," Eir directed.

The dark-haired man regarded Eir for a moment in silence. "I don't think I care to turn my back to the brute with the hammer or the friendly woman with the dagger," he finally said, wiping the back of his left hand over his throat and glancing at the tiny smear of drying blood that came away.

"As long as you make no sudden moves, you have my word as the queen of Asgard that you won't be harmed."

The stranger with Loki's face hesitated a moment longer, then nodded and turned.

Eir came closer until she stood next to Frigga, facing the imposter's back. "Lower your pants."

Frigga's surprise registered on her face, but she'd already schooled it away by the time the false Loki whirled around, his face full of outrage.

"You _must_ be jesting. I will do no such thing."

"Be calm. Loki has a small mole on his left cheek. If you show us that you don't have it, we'll know you aren't him. I can ask the others to leave; I have been Loki's healer all his life and I am the only one who needs to see."

The imposter clenched his jaw so tightly Frigga saw the muscles tremble. He looked angry, and his breaths were again audible.

"My queen, Prince Thor, would you give us some privacy, please?" Eir asked when Loki did not respond.

Frigga turned to go and caught Thor staring in confusion.

"You people are insane!" Loki, or not-Loki, abruptly shouted. "I told you, Loki changed my appearance to match his. He was _thorough._ I _do_ have a mole, because he _gave_ it to me. It doesn't mean I'm him, I _swear_ it. Can I _please_ just leave here? I don't know anything about these-"

"Hush, Loki," Frigga said softly, her eyes moistening, though the tears from before did not quite return. "Eir, there's a small cut on my son's neck. Would you please take care of it?" Disappointment weighed on her like blocks of stone, and she stared at the marbled floor, unable to lift her eyes to Loki. _How many times can I let him do this to me?_ She took a deep breath to try to help settle her feelings. _As many as it takes._ She lifted her head.

"It's fully healed, my prince," Eir said, bringing her hand away from Loki's neck.

Loki then sagged back against the wall Frigga had pinned him to earlier. "The mole," he said, then began to laugh, a sound thoroughly lacking in happiness. "You tricked me again. If I had dropped my pants…"

"I knew you wouldn't," Eir said in her usual calm, even, matter-of-fact voice. "I already knew you were Loki. I've treated you from the very beginning. I have healed your ribs before, Prince Loki. More than once. I know every bone and muscle and tendon in your body as well as I know your face. It was your mother who needed to be convinced."

Frigga glanced at Eir in surprise, then away again, back at Loki. She was right. She hadn't wanted to believe that Loki could show such a complete lack of feeling toward her. They _were_ Loki's eyes…they simply looked at her as though she were a stranger.

"Thor," she began, pausing to swallow heavily, "you may take him to his cell now. I'll come see you in a little while, Loki. Heimdall said you were having dinner. It's nearly daybreak now here. I'll bring you some breakfast."

His expression impenetrable, Thor came forward and clasped one hand around Loki's arm, and the other around the chain connecting Loki's wrists.

Loki started forward with Thor compliantly; he seemed to be almost in a state of shock.

Frigga's eyes fell to the dark green bag that still hung from Loki's right hand. "Thor, wait. Have you searched that bag?"

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/

_Hugs to you all! Thanks for your comments and questions and favorites and follows and simply for reading. Next up, in Chapter 5, "Mine": Like Tony Stark, Loki doesn't much like it when people take his stuff._


	5. Mine

_This chapter picks up right where the previous left off, so if you didn't just read Ch. 4 you might want to take a quick look back at the end of it._

/

* * *

_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 5: Mine**

Thor eyed Loki's bag warily. "No, but I wasn't going to let him take it into the cell." He'd paid it little heed thus far, since Loki had made no effort to avail himself of its contents. From the appearance of the bag – longer than it was wide, made of olive green cloth, secured with a long brown rolled leather strap looping around the circular opening on top – and the fact that Loki had taken it with him while trying to escape on Alfheim, he had assumed it contained provisions for getting by while on the run.

He decided it was best to separate it from him now, in case there was something of concern in the bag after all, and took hold of the strap to pull it from Loki's hand. It was then that Loki came out of his stupor, flinching, then grasping for the bag that was now in Thor's hand instead. "That's mine, you can't take it."

"I just did," Thor said, twisting away and holding the bag out of Loki's reach, while his brother continued to stretch and grab and scramble, taking every bit of slack in the chain between his wrists that Thor still had a hold of to reach across Thor's broad chest, then over his shoulders. Despite his annoyance, Thor found his lips pulling into a smile and time slipping backward. This felt more like his youth and young adulthood with Loki, when they'd constantly tussled and fought and chased and ambushed, usually accompanied by smiles and laughter.

"Enough, Loki," Thor said, his voice quiet but rough from an unsettling combination of constrained laughter and underlying bitterness that had never quite gone away since he'd learned Loki had lied about their father's death and had only gotten worse since Midgard.

There was no sign of levity at all in Loki. He'd managed to make it to Thor's other side, and Thor in turn had lifted the bag high and quickly switched its strap and Loki's chain between his hands, so that Loki reached to his right side, then slipped behind him.

Frigga was saying something, but Thor missed it because the next thing he knew the chain was digging into his neck. Thor gave a shout of surprise, but the sound died away quickly as the metal links sank into his flesh and squeezed into his throat and closed off his windpipe. His arms fumbled behind him, seeking his brother and not finding him. Mjolnir was close by, next to the door, but letting go of the chain to call it did not even occur to him. Instead, he leaned over, then swiveled up and around hard, his hands going to the chain, seeking to jostle Loki enough to create the tiniest bit of slack in the chain so he could pull it away, but Loki held fast. He heard shouts and the sounds of a scuffle behind him but they came to him as though from a great distance, void of meaning. Then suddenly the pressure on his neck was gone and his arms were flying forward, yanking the chain away, then abruptly stopping as a weight crashed into him from behind and his arms could move no further. Limp wrists hung from the manacles that had been pulled into his field of vision, one over each shoulder.

"Thor, stop, let go," his mother said from behind him.

He ducked and turned, stepping under the chain and finding Loki unconscious behind him, held up by the chain Thor still held at the level of his head.

"He didn't mean to," his mother was mumbling. Thor's eyes rose from the still form of his brother – arms stretched above him, head lolling to the side, mouth hanging open, chest resting against Thor's waist – to his mother, whose nose dripped blood. "I know he didn't mean to. It was an accident. He didn't know it was me."

"Shhh. Let me fix this," Eir said, gently pushing the queen's trembling hands away from her battered face and running her own hands above the nose and reddened cheek.

"What happened?" Thor asked, finally lowering Loki to the ground on his back over bent knees, but keeping the chain firmly in his grasp and thus Loki's arms raised perhaps a foot off the floor. His throat burned; he could still feel the chain links there.

His mother still distraught and distracted, it was Eir who answered. "Your mother tried to stop him and he struck her with his elbow. I induced him to sleep. He hasn't been harmed." Eir moved away and took a small white cloth from a cabinet against the wall – the blood had stopped dripping and Frigga's cheek was not as red – then dabbed away the trail of blood, though there was nothing to be done about the few drops that stained the bodice of her gown reddish-purple.

"Mother, something is very wrong here," Thor said as Eir finished cleaning Frigga's face.

"I know," she said, her voice still shaky, her eyes still darting about settling nowhere but always returning to Loki's still form. "But he didn't mean to do it."

"No, Mother, he…" Thor closed the short distance between him and his mother, his left hand stretched out behind him with the chain. He touched his mother's cheek, the one Loki had obviously struck, and gently caressed it. When he began again, it was in the softest voice he could manage. "Loki would never hit you. And if he did so by accident, he would never so callously ignore it. Even this," he said, moving his hand to brush his own neck, where he felt the shape of the links in his skin, "there's something not right about it."

Frigga nodded, her focus finally settling on him. She touched his neck as well, then took his hand and squeezed it. "He could have killed you."

"That's not it." _He's tried that before and come closer._ And then he realized exactly what was different. "When Loki has tried…to hurt me in the past, he's always done it while looking me straight in the eye. Even when he sent the Destroyer to Midgard, I knew whose eyes were upon me when I looked at the Destroyer's face, and he would know that I knew. Pulling a chain taut from behind me…Loki would no more do that than he would strike you. Eir," he said, turning to face Asgard's chief healer, his hand still wrapped over his mother's, "are you _certain_ this is Loki?"

"I would stake my life on it. I know Loki's body better than Loki himself. Even if he were to make a corporeal duplicate of himself that could act independently, he would not know, for example, exactly what the miniscule marks should look like, and where exactly they should be, from when his ribs were broken when he was just nine years old. They're so faint I doubt any healer other than I could even detect them, and that because I already know where to look. But they were there, exactly as they should be. There is no doubt. This _is_ Prince Loki."

"Then something has happened to him. Something has changed him," Thor declared. "Look at the clothing he wears. The things he's said. The way he's behaved. He barely fought me on Alfheim. My presence there surprised him, I think, but why? He should have known that once he stopped hiding himself Heimdall would find him eventually. He should have expected my arrival, and he should have prepared for it. _I_ expected traps and trickery and deceit and something far more than what I got." He released his mother's hand and gestured toward his thigh. "I healed this with only a fragment of a stone."

Frigga nodded, and Thor could tell she was thinking about what he'd said, but she was blinking rapidly and still seemed somewhat distracted. He was upset for her, for how deeply Loki's actions had rattled her. "How long will he sleep?" she finally asked Eir.

"Perhaps an hour. If you wish to wake him before then, send for me. If he sleeps much beyond that and you wish to wake him, you may do so just as you would anyone who is sleeping."

She nodded again. "Take him back to his cell, Thor. Then go to the throne room. We need to discuss all this privately with your father."

Thor nodded deeply, then turned to face Loki's crumpled body, trying to quickly determine the best way to move Loki now that he couldn't proceed on his own two feet. Dragging him by his chains, despite what he'd threatened earlier, was out of the question. So was hoisting him over his shoulder – he wanted no part of Loki out of his line of sight, for if anyone could wake from a magically induced sleep early it would be Loki. He settled for scooping him up with one arm under his knees and the other under his back, the chain clasped in Thor's fist and carefully drawn across Loki's chest so as not to unduly pull on his brother's arms.

He shifted his arms a bit, settling Loki more securely into position. Loki's slender frame wasn't too heavy, and holding him was reasonably comfortable; his clothing was soft, nothing metal anywhere except for his belt buckle. He stared down hard into his brother's closed eyes for a moment, waiting for the eyelids to pop open and Loki to burst into laughter, proclaiming what a fool he'd made of his brother yet again, what an imbecile he was to believe this little game Loki had been playing. For him to pull a knife from thin air and jab it into Thor's heart. But the eyes stayed closed, the body stayed still, and Thor set off for the cells in the deepest, most secure level of Asgard's prison.

/

* * *

/

Frigga watched as Thor grappled for a moment with how best to get Loki back to his cell. She opened her mouth to caution him to protect Loki's head, but caught herself in time. Thor was doing the best he could, taking care not to jar Loki's arms in their sockets with the chain and not to hold him too tightly. He had no additional arms to prevent Loki's head from hanging down and rolling around on his neck.

"Your Majesty, if you need me for anything, I will be here."

"Yes, thank you, Eir. I don't know what we would do without you. You've always taken such good care of Loki. Of all of us."

"It has always been my pleasure," the older woman said with a bow.

Frigga gave a sad smile, for there were many, many times, including this one, when it had surely not been Eir's pleasure to be Loki's personal healer. _A lie,_ Frigga realized. And not the first she'd heard that day from Eir. "I asked you to lie to Loki once for me, when he was a child. You very nearly refused. You told me you would not lie. And yet here you lied directly to Loki, and so well I almost believed you even though I knew perfectly well Loki had no mole," she said.

"Forgive me, my queen. I believed it necessary, in order to make plain the greater truth. But I have never said that I cannot lie, only that I cannot lie to someone in my care about his or her health or treatment."

Frigga nodded and lingered in the past while Eir took her leave. Eir had made Loki sleep once before, at Frigga's insistence. It was his tenth birthday, and the tenth anniversary of the victory over Jotunheim. In honor of the truce, in reluctant pledge of peace, the king and queen of Jotunheim were to journey to Asgard, come before the throne, and greet Odin. Thor and Loki had both been eager for their first glimpse of an actual Frost Giant, but Frigga was adamant that Loki not see them…or rather that they not see Loki. Would the child's biological mother not recognize the boy she'd given birth to, even with the passage of ten years, even with the Aesir form he wore? When she saw how perfect he was, how kind and loving and inquisitive, would she not want to take him back, even though she'd cast him aside and abandoned him before? Frigga would have moved mountains to protect her boy, to _keep_ her boy.

So she'd insisted over Eir's objections that she tell Loki he was very sick, that he had to stay in bed, that he needed rest, that he would have to miss the day's events. And to ensure that he could not insist he was well, she'd further insisted that Eir make him sleep. Eir had hated it. Frigga had hated it. She'd cried more than once that day. But she hadn't regretted it. Because that night when the Jotuns were gone and she returned to Loki, he was still hers.

She took a slow, deep breath and reached a hand up to her face. Eir was skilled and she'd tended to this injury right away; the place where Loki's elbow and arm had slammed into her face didn't hurt at all. It would be easy enough to tell herself it had never happened, if she so chose.

Adjusting her posture back to what a queen's should be, she started for the door, to go to the throne room. Then her eyes fell on Loki's bag, on the floor where Thor had dropped it in his attempt to get free of the chain Loki had wrapped around his neck. She'd never seen Loki try to take anything from it, or even look at it with any particular attention. But he'd clearly not wanted to part with it.

She picked it up and took it with her. Perhaps some sort of clue to whatever had happened to Loki was to be found in it.

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_Slightly cruel of me perhaps, I know, in that this chapter ends pretty much as the last one did. Still I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you again for reading, for reviewing, for sharing your thoughts._

_In the next chapter, Frost Giants attack and they **still** don't check out that bag. In fact, the Frost Giants steal it! And sell it to the Fire Giants!_

_Just kidding! In the next chapter, "The Unfathomable," Loki's family - and you! - will begin to get some answers._

_The incident Frigga remembers from when Loki was ten was briefly referenced in my story _Beneath_, and will be covered real-time in _Like Any Other Child_, which I do still work on from time to time, too._


	6. The Unfathomable

_**The Memory Casket**_

**Chapter 6: The Unfathomable**

"I fear he's lost his mind," Frigga said, concluding her summary of everything that had happened in the Healing Room after Odin had left.

Odin sat back and sighed. He was confident Loki had not lost his mind. Ever since Thor had succeeded in bringing Loki back to Asgard from Midgard, he'd ordered and received weekly reports on Loki's health and well-being. Loki submitted to the physical exams but not to any questions. His behavior, though, suggested someone who could not let go of hatred and rage, rather than someone who had truly let go of reality.

"There are other explanations, Frigga."

"He _struck_ me, Odin. Where is your other explanation for that?" she demanded, pacing the length of his office just off the throne room, but stopping right next to the table where he sat and glaring at him at the last.

Odin stood and placed his hands gently on Frigga's shoulders. "You said you were behind him. I'm sure he didn't know who he was hitting."

"He knew I was behind him, and Eir. He would never hit her either. And he turned his head after he did it; he saw what he had done. But he didn't show any regret, or even any surprise, and he didn't stop trying to choke Thor."

"Frigg…it could all be an elaborate hoax. A lie to manipulate us in some way." _And you were always the easiest for him to manipulate of us all. You see him the way you want to see him, and he takes advantage._

"Then it would have to be lies within lies within lies. I can't accept that. No," she said, resuming her pacing, "he's lost his mind, from facing such a long sentence. He needed something more from us, something we never gave him."

"You've tried to give him every bit of love, every word of reassurance, what more could you give him? You can't give what he won't accept."

"Perhaps he needs those words of love and reassurance from _you_, Odin," she said, again coming to a stop by the table.

Odin looked down, his face betraying no emotion, an art he'd long since mastered from so long sitting on a throne. An art he'd mastered too well, to his own detriment. Perhaps to Loki's as well. "I seem to be able to say only the wrong thing to him. And besides, I am the last person in the Nine Realms he wishes to speak to him. The last person he would be willing to listen to. If he won't even accept what you say, how can you-"

"Loki is sleeping in his cell. I left the manacles on this time, just to be safe," Thor said, joining the two of them at the narrow wooden table and sinking down into the chair opposite where Odin stood; Odin thought he looked tired. Tired of chasing down his brother, most likely.

Frigga nodded, though Odin couldn't help noticing the frown that briefly deepened when Thor said he'd left Loki's wrists bound, loose though the binds may be.

Their earlier conversation was over; they tried very hard to spare Thor their own worries and disagreements about Loki. It was hard enough on their oldest boy as it was. Odin took his seat again. He was tired as well.

"Did you see what's in here yet?" Thor asked, angling his head down toward the bag Frigga had laid across the table.

"We wanted to wait for you," Frigga answered, pulling out the chair at the end of the table and sitting down. "Go ahead, open it."

/

* * *

/

Thor pulled the top end of the bag over closer to him, but hesitated. When he and Loki were closer, he would've opened up his brother's bag and dumped its contents on the floor without a second's thought, and Loki would have done the same to him. They'd had no secrets from each other, and little concern for privacy. Now…it felt like some strange sort of violation to paw through Loki's possessions while Loki was not even here to object or approve. But it had to be done.

He loosened the leather strap looped through the bag's opening, then threw a questioning look up to his parents.

"I don't detect any unusual energy in it," Odin said, and Frigga shook her head.

Thor nodded and continued. He hadn't either, but his skills did not lay in magic, and if he stuck a hand into this bag he hoped to pull it out again whole and properly shaped.

The bag was about three quarters full, so Thor peered into it before sticking his hand in to pull out the cloth he'd seen on top. Black pants. There were pockets in the front and sides; they were empty except for a couple of Ljosalf coins, a rounded piece of metal that might have been a bottle cap, and a bit of lint. Next, a dark blue shirt with some kind of silvery, vaguely leaf-shaped print on it, shorter in length than was the norm for Asgardian men, and with hardly any sleeves at all. More articles of clothing followed, all of it more typical of Alfheim than Asgard. Finally Thor's hand met leather.

"It's his vest, the one he was wearing when he escaped," Frigga said, reaching out to take it from Thor. It was a relatively simple item, long, entirely sleeveless with just a band of stiff dark brown leather slightly flaring over the shoulders.

Thor reached back into the bag, his arm buried almost to the shoulder now. His fingers brushed something cold and hard, then something that bent a little when his hand pushed past it. He grasped the metal object by its corner, working the more pliable thin object between the metal and his thumb and withdrawing both at the same time.

The metal box was cube-shaped, made of dark tarnished silver, with a levered dial much like the face of a clock on what was apparently the front of it.

The other item was a small stack of folded white paper, bound together by a thin strip of leather looping over it horizontally and vertically then tied off into a knot.

No one said a word as Thor took the box and gave the lever an experimental push, then kept pushing it around until he heard something in the box click. With just his thumb he pressed upward, and the lid easily opened. Inside sat some kind of glass vase, the top of it rough, as though made by an amateur who'd attempted to shape the molten glass too late in the process. When he looked down into the short pinched-off neck, he could not see inside the vase. He reached in and grasped it by the roughened top, felt a tingling along his fingers, and quickly set it down in the middle of the table. The exact color of the glass itself was impossible to determine for all the green swirls of what looked like mist inside it, darker in some places and lighter in others, making the glass partly opaque. One side of the glass had a dark circular spot, and from it, when the mist shifted in just the right way, a tube disappeared inside the vase, as though the vase's opening were on its side instead of its top, though the dark spot appeared as solid as the rest of the object. Thor reached for it again, this time pushing a finger into the neck, but there he felt only that odd buzzing sensation and a pressure that prevented his finger from entering the vase.

"Put it back," Odin ordered.

Thor replaced the glass object immediately, then closed the lid and gave the lever a quick spin, just enough to hear another click.

"What is that?" Frigga asked a moment later as they each continued to stare, giving voice to what Thor, and surely his father, was thinking as well.

"I have never seen anything like it," Odin said quietly. "But strong magic surrounds it. We must be careful."

Thor set the dark silver box aside, then picked up the papers. He turned them over in his hand, then drew back his neck in surprise. "Mother," he began, gaze still fixed on the familiar lines and curves of Loki's handwriting, "this is addressed to you." He held out his hand.

His mother's eyes met his for a long moment, then fell back to the bound papers, which she took from him. She deftly worked the knot loose, unwrapped the leather tie, and placed it carefully on the table. Her fingers carefully separated the papers from each other; there were three individual sheets, each folded. "There's one for each of us."

Odin held out his hand, and Frigga gave him one of the sheets of paper. Thor watched as his father unfolded it, watched as his impassive face quickly darkened and set into an expression of anger followed by what looked like sadness.

"What? What does it say?" Frigga asked.

Odin said nothing, but slid the paper across the table's polished surface toward Frigga.

She picked it up; her own expression fell as her shoulders slumped.

"May I?" Thor asked.

Frigga looked to Odin, who nodded. She slid the paper to Thor, and he lifted it and read aloud.

"'Everything I ever did is on your head. Sleep well, All-Father.'" He looked the paper up and down, flipped it over, turned it back, as though somehow more words would appear. "What does he mean by that?" he asked. There was no question Loki had written it; Thor knew his younger brother's writing well.

"He means to blame me for his crimes," Odin said, the reaction he'd shown before now smoothed away into that impassive expression he so often wore.

"Obviously, but why? There's no explanation, no justification. You didn't make him-"

"Thor, that's enough. No good can come of this."

Thor frowned. He was so tired of Loki with his irrational anger and accusations. Loki could not _talk_, he could only accuse and hurl insults. Even in writing nothing changed. He glanced at his mother, who'd still said nothing since reading Odin's letter, such as it was. She was staring down at the letter in her own hand now, the one on which he could make out her name. She was afraid of what it might say, he knew.

"Frigg…," Odin began, then fell silent.

"You read it first, Odin, please," she said after a moment, holding the folded paper out to him.

Odin took the paper, unfolded it, wrinkled his brow. "I cannot."

"Is it…is it that bad?"

"It's blank. There's nothing written here." Odin's thumb traced over the paper; his lips thinned. "There may be a message that only you can read."

/

* * *

/

Frigga took the paper back again with great trepidation. If this were some kind of final rejection, she would rather simply not read it. She had rejected him after Baldur's death, and she'd vowed never to do it again, no matter what, and though Loki had severely tested her, she had not yet failed to take him in her arms. She would reject his rejection with every last ounce of her strength, with her dying breath.

Her eyes flickered down to the first few words, plain as day, written by Loki's hand, in black ink. _"My dear mother, I cannot know the circumstances…"_ She took a deep breath and nodded. Odin's letter had not begun with such words, certainly there had been no "My dear father" greeting. She wet her lips and began to read aloud.

"My dear mother,

"I cannot know the circumstances under which you are reading this letter, but probably by now you have at least guessed that something is different about me. What I have to say will be difficult for you to hear, and for your sake I regret it. For your sake and your sake alone, I regret a great many things."

Frigga tried to steel herself further, afraid of what was to come. Loki had never spoken of regret to her before, not since his return from Midgard.

"I wish for something new. I abhor stagnation. To be more plain, I abhor boredom. I long for something more for myself than what Asgard would have of me, whether the incarceration of the next six hundred and forty-eight years, or the troubles that would plague me for the rest of my life there. You know as well as I do that things can never be what they once were, although I understand that your heart tells you otherwise. I cannot blame you for that. For you, dear, gentle mother, I would turn back time and live in ignorance in your kind embrace.

"For myself, however, I must pursue a different path. I must forge a new beginning.

"Tomorrow morning I will go into town to bring an end to my old life…bring…bring an end…" _No. Loki is alive. He has not done such a thing. _Frigga lowered the hand that had gone to her mouth. "To bring an end to my old life and embark upon a new one. There is some risk in the procedure, but I have…but I have scoured Alfheim and found the best mind healers in the realm. Their success rate is near perfect, and I do not anticipate any complications." Her reading had grown slower, her sentences more like questions, because nothing she read made sense. "Mind healers? He has sought some kind of treatment on Alfheim?"

"Keep reading, Frigg," Odin said, but she hesitated, resisted looking down at the page again, because her eyes had already caught a phrase from the next line: "will no longer exist." She didn't want to know what that meant. But Odin and Thor were both watching her, both waiting.

"When they have completed their task, the person I am now will no longer exist, and a new person will exist in his place. Every thought, every experience, everything and everyone – every memory – will have been…removed." She paused, eyes locked on that word: "removed." When she began again she was rushing over the words, barely processing them, voice shaking. "I will be a blank slate, ready for whatever great adventure presents itself. You know that I have always enjoyed being the instigator of unpredictability, inciting chaos, some would say. This will be my grandest stroke yet, for I will be creating of my own life" – here she stopped to refill her lungs and swallow, and the next few words came out as though foreign and difficult to pronounce – "the purest unpredictability of all."

There was more, but her eyes had glazed over. _"Every memory will have been removed…"_ It was unfathomable. But Loki had done the unfathomable before…

Frigga shot up out of her chair and ran from the room.

* * *

/

_Three guesses where Frigga's heading and the first two don't count._

_Theories confirmed? Any surprises? I do continue to point you to the story blurb. ;-)_

_You will eventually get the full letter, by the way - you will eventually know what was written on all five sheets of paper. You know two-and-a-half now. And yes, the story image is what's in the silver box in Loki's bag._

_Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, following! I appreciate it._


	7. Kendrith

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 7: Kendrith**

Loki – who had never heard the name "Loki" until Odin had used it and instead had taken to calling himself Kendrith – woke slowly, with a minor headache settled behind his eyes. And with an itch on his nose. With some difficulty as he wondered why his hand felt so heavy, he managed to get that hand up to his nose to scratch, only to have something hard, cold, and heavy hit him in the face. All vestiges of sleep fled and he bolted upright, only then taking in his surroundings in a growing panic.

A chain connecting his shackled wrists. A strange, brightly lit room with two clear glass walls, and everywhere else – floor, walls, ceiling – white. The few objects in it stood out amongst all the near-blinding white as though they didn't belong there. A bed he'd never slept in until just now, a green velvet blanket covering him from foot to waist. A small table with a few objects on it. A chair. A footstool. A couple of other small pieces of furniture, a few belongings he couldn't identify stacked in a corner.

He'd never seen any of it before. He pressed heavy trembling hands to his head. _It's happened again! It's happened again!_ he screamed to himself over and over, too afraid to say anything aloud.

Then, out of nowhere, some more logical side of him asserted itself and he calmed considerably. _If it had happened again, there would be no "again" in your thoughts, for you would not remember that it had ever happened before. _Then the memories started coming back, the memories that proved it had not happened again. The big blond. The hammer. The other two, totaling the three he'd wondered about. The healer. The tricks. The accusations. _"Take him back to his cell."_

Kendrith looked at his surroundings with a new eye. _So this was his cell._ Comfortable, as far as what he might have thought a cell would be, if he'd ever thought about it before – which he hadn't. The glass, though, was disconcerting, and would certainly prevent a prisoner from letting his comfortable housing delude him into thinking he was anything but a prisoner.

His eyes then focused beyond the glass. He had a neighbor, apparently, across from him, behind glass of his own. An unusually short man, from one of the other realms most likely, one Kendrith had not yet learned much about. The other man was staring back at him. He gave his shorter neighbor a tentative smile – why, he wasn't sure – and the man smiled back with sharply pointed teeth and something between a leer and a laugh on his face. Kendrith shuddered and looked away.

A few more minutes passed in which he looked around the room again from the bed, until it occurred to him he had no idea how he'd wound up here. He'd been in that chamber in the Healing Room, and Thor had been taking him away – taking him here. And then the rest came back. _The bag_. _He tried to take the bag. He _did_ take the bag. And I tried to get it back. I tried to… Oh, no._ Kendrith groaned and fell back flat on the bed with an audible thud. This Thor – supposedly his brother though he hardly acted like it – was a prince. And not just _a_ prince, it seemed, but _the_ prince. The heir to a throne. _And I tried to kill him._ _I…did I kill him? _He couldn't remember what happened in the end; either he'd succeeded and they'd overcome him and brought him here, or he'd been stopped and they'd overcome him and brought him here. He hadn't meant to, really, or at least he hadn't planned to. He just didn't want to have that bag taken from him, more specifically some of the bag's contents. But he'd done what he'd done, on instinct, and now he was locked away in a prison cell, guilty of either murder or attempted murder, on top of whatever exactly Loki had done, and the bag…

Kendrith threw back the blanket, chain clanking, and stood up. He looked under the bed, under the covers, opened the few drawers he found in the furniture, but neither the bag nor its contents were anywhere to be found.

_Perhaps it's for the best,_ he thought, staring blankly at the golden chair with the green cushions. _There's no reason for me to cling to it as I do. And the letters…perhaps they contain a plea for my freedom, for considering me not guilty of his crimes._ Kendrith found himself playing those words back, over a thousand dead on Midgard, a realm he knew nothing about. He shuddered again at the thought that his sharp-toothed neighbor might be from there, and might have it in for him. An unknown number dead on Jotunheim, another realm he knew nothing about, except the people there were giants, so his neighbor was clearly not from there. His hope that he would be freed was tempered by the knowledge that no matter how eloquently his former self – Loki – may have pleaded for his future self's innocence, now he had the whole matter of the murder or attempted murder of the prince to be weighed against him.

He pressed a hand hard against the mattress. Not too firm, not too soft. Comfortable. If they served fresh vegetables here, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. Kendrith rolled his eyes. _No,_ he told himself. He took a deep breath and tried to still the slight tremble in his chest. _Though he may have deserved it, Loki did not intend to stay here and accept this fate, and neither do I._

/

* * *

/

Frigga ran the entire way. The distance was not short. She was just growing short of breath when she reached the bottom of the stairs in the labyrinth that was the lower levels of the prison. "Seal off all the other cells," she ordered the nearest guard on duty, "then leave us alone."

The instructions were not unusual even if they were usually given with greater decorum, and the guard followed them promptly, blackening the glass and dampening the sound from every cell but the newly reoccupied one. Frigga hated seeing the other prisoners here, those guilty of heinous crimes, those who remained a danger to everyone around them, those who showed no remorse. Those who reminded her that Loki had become all those things.

Loki's cell was at the far end, and by the time she'd reached it all the guards were gone, waiting at the next higher level of the prison. He was sitting in his chair, as he often did – there were few alternatives – and did not notice her arrival as he stared forward at the far wall, the glass that revealed only rough-hewn stone beyond. "Loki," she whispered.

His neck whipped around, then he stood and walked to the glass. Her eyes locked onto him while her thoughts waged battle, disbelief because it was so clearly _Loki_ that stood before her against the words that he himself had written to her. "Do you remember me?" she finally asked, her voice soft and full of hope.

"Yes," he answered.

Frigga drew in a sharp breath and her heart leapt with joy at the confirmation of what she knew had to be true, that what he said would happen had not happened, that this was her son, and her son could never erase her from his memory, he could never-

"You're the one who put a dagger to my throat. It's difficult to forget, really."

And just like that the joy bled away through a cruel wound. "I…I'm sorry about that. I truly didn't believe you to be…you. I meant-"

"I know what you meant. And no, I don't remember you from before your son dragged me to this place. Am I right in assuming this is Asgard?"

"You don't…you don't even know which realm you're on?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask."

"Yes. Yes, this is Asgard. This is your home. And I am…you truly do not remember me? You remember nothing?"

"I remember nothing before forty-seven…forty-eight days ago. But that doesn't mean I'm an imbecile. I suspected that was the bifrost that transported me here, for I'd heard about it on Alfheim, and I listened to everything you all have said. I now know that you are Queen Frigga of Asgard, that your husband is King Odin of Asgard, that your son is Prince Thor of Asgard. I know that you think of me as your son, but your son is gone. He is nothing to do with me, and I am nothing to do with him. My name is not Loki."

"But…it's the name I gave you," Frigga said, just as disturbed by his matter-of-fact tone devoid of any warmth as she was by his actual words.

"It's the name you gave _him_. _My_ name is Kendrith."

"Kendrith," she repeated, slowly, pronouncing each sound carefully. It sounded fundamentally wrong, like looking at the sky and calling it the ground. She couldn't look at Loki, at _her_ Loki, and think of that foreign name.

"Your name is Loki," Thor said, approaching to stand beside her, along with Odin. She hadn't heard their arrival at all.

Loki's eyes went wide at the sight of Thor, then gave a sigh, his deep relief visible. "Thank Yggdrasil, I was afraid you were dead."

Frigga glanced between Loki and Thor, who looked suspicious, as hope began to rise in her again, despite the odd use of "thank Yggdrasil," an expression common among the elves but not in use among the Aesir.

"Not for your lack of trying," Thor said before Frigga could respond.

"You're one to talk, aren't you? You could have killed me with that hammer."

"I know how to use Mjolnir, Loki. I wouldn't have killed you."

"Mjolnir?" Loki repeated with wrinkled brow, slightly mispronouncing the word. "Did you actually _name_ your hammer? Do you name all of your nails, too? It must get difficult to keep track."

"Loki-"

"You may insist upon that all you like, but my name is Kendrith, and I have citizenship papers on Alfheim to prove it."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, and Frigga finally asked what she wanted to before, though she knew there was no longer a need to. "Do you…you don't remember Thor, then?"

"Are you dense? I have already told you I remember nothing from before the last forty-eight days," Loki said with a flash of annoyance cutting through the cold demeanor, his words a knife twisting in her belly. He had never spoken to her with such blatant disrespect.

"Loki, or Kendrith, whatever you wish to call yourself, you will not speak to your mother that way," Odin said.

"She isn't my mother," he snapped back.

"Then you will not speak to the _queen_ that way."

A change slowly came over him, and Frigga watched him closely, desperate to understand, desperate to determine whether he remembered something, whether the deep bow he went into was meant in mockery or true obedience, whether he was making up this entire story of surrendered memories.

"Forgive me," he said when he stood straight again, his bow not particularly reminiscent of how it was done on Asgard. "I have never met a king or queen before. Or prince," he said, nodding cautiously to Thor. "It occurs to me that I don't actually know how one is supposed to speak to such people. I beg of Your Majesties to have mercy on me for my transgression. And Prince Thor…I cannot express to you just how much I regret what I did earlier. I acted…without prudence or forethought. I can only say in my defense that I have few belongings, and I suppose I went into something of a panic when I realized you intended to take them from me."

"You _sound _like Loki," Thor said

"I'm sure I do. We have the same physiology."

"I wasn't talking about your physiology."

"Loki-" Frigga cut in, the stopped herself. "Kendrith…no, I can't call you that."

He started to speak, hesitated, then began. "I can hardly prevent you from calling me anything you like, Your Majesty, but my _name_ is Kendrith."

"We read the letters you wrote," she said, avoiding a name altogether.

"You read the letters _he_ wrote. Good. I had assumed that you did. I trust that they satisfactorily explained what has happened?"

"You haven't read them?" Frigga asked.

"They were not addressed to me," he answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the realm.

"So you…you had no memory, yet you had these letters, and you weren't at all curious about what they said, about why you had written them?"

"Why _he_ had written them. And no. I was not. They were the last threads to be tied on a past he obviously wished to abandon, so why would I unravel them?"

"Then I want you to," Frigga said hurriedly. _That will fix things, make them right._ "I want you to read the letter you wrote me. I want you to- Don't do that. Don't turn away from me. I am talking to you, Loki Odinson. I want you to read that letter and tell me you aren't curious. Tell me you don't want to remember me, or any of us. You said you regretted it. You said you-"

"Frigg-"

"No, Odin, I am talking to my son," she said, spinning around to face Odin and pulling away the hand he'd taken. "Loki, tell me how to undo this," she said, turning back to the cell, to Loki's impassive face. "Whatever I must do, I will do. You said you went to healers on Alfheim. Which healers? We'll take you back there. We'll-"

"Frigga!"

"What!" she shouted, again turning to Odin, clenching her hands at her sides to avoid smashing them into his chest or face.

"This isn't helping," he said, and why, _why_ Frigga demanded with no more than a look, could he not show _some_ emotion? Some reaction to indicate that he, too, was devastated by this. _Are you not? Is your heart not shattering the same as mine? Would you stand there so calmly if this were Thor?_ She winced with the thought, the question she could not give voice to, and this more than anything else calmed her frenzied desperation.

Slowly she turned again to face Loki, consciously relaxing her face, her shoulders, her hands. His face, his beautiful face, the face she'd known for over a thousand years, the face she'd watched transform from infancy to boyhood to manhood, that face stared back at her as though chiseled from stone, unbending and unfeeling. "Tell me the truth," she said, this time catching herself in time to not use his name. "Do you truly not remember me? From before today."

"I truly do not, Your Majesty."

Frigga's eyes blurred, but she maintained her stoic position.

"Nor do I recall any of the things my predecessor did to deserve this fate," he said, angling his head around to indicate the cell. "This body may have committed those crimes, but I did not. I have lived for forty-eight days, and whatever came before then I am innocent of. I beg you to please not hold me accountable for what he did."

"That is quite enough for now. Frigga, let's go," Odin said, and she let him lead her out of the corridor, her eyes locked on Loki's until she could no longer see him.

They climbed the first flight of stairs and reached the spacious landing that normally served as a guarded checkpoint – another flight of stairs that turned in a different direction led to the next level of cells – and found only Eir there, waiting.

"Go, give me a moment," she told Odin, giving his hand a quick squeeze; Eir was one of the few people she would do such a thing in front of, and one of the few people Odin would permit such a thing in front of.

"I'll have breakfast sent to our chambers."

Frigga nodded and he left.

She looked at Eir, who'd simply remained standing there in silence.

"He doesn't remember anything," she told her after a moment, with a small strained smile, trying to maintain some…formality, poise, dignity…something that would hold her together in one piece. "He had his memories removed. On Alfheim. And he doesn't remember anything. He doesn't remember me. Or Odin. Or Thor. He didn't even know he was on Asgard. He didn't want to remember anymore. And now he doesn't. He says his name isn't Loki. He says…he…"

Eir stepped forward to pull Frigga into her arms, and Frigga soon let go of the pieces she'd been struggling to keep together and let her tears flow freely, soaking the beige healers' robe as Eir rubbed her back.

Eventually she gathered herself together again and pulled away, grasping now for the healer's hands and squeezing them tightly in desperation. "Eir," she said, her voice soft and trembling even over the single syllable.

"Yes?"

She pleaded with her eyes. "Can you heal my heart?"

/

* * *

/

Not wishing to intrude on his mother's moment with Eir, Thor waited a few steps down from the landing after following his parents up the stairs. When he heard those words, Thor tightened his jaw and hurried back down.

* * *

/

_Ch. 8 "Thor": Thor is...not in a great mood, let's say. Neither is Loki/Kendrith. Hm, well, I guess nobody's in a particularly good mood at the moment!_

_Oh! And yes, the description of Loki's cell is a result of scrupulous viewing, reviewing, pausing every bit of _Thor 2_ footage online showing his cell. BUT, this story is obviously not meant to have any connection to _The Dark World_. I just figured, this must be what the max-security long-term prison cells look like, why not use it?_

_Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing!_


	8. Thor

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 8: Thor**

"You have returned."

"Very observant, Loki," Thor said, and he could not deny the rush of satisfaction at for once getting in a dig at Loki's intelligence.

Loki didn't react to it, other than to give a small dip of his head that looked almost respectful. If it hadn't come from Loki.

Thor stepped through the thick glass and ledge of Loki's cell that parted and reformed around him and then behind him, never allowing any gap between the barrier and him as he passed through, nothing that Loki could take advantage of. Loki looked startled, and kept glancing at the resolidified glass. "How could you do that to our mother?" Thor demanded.

"Tell her the truth? She is not a mother to me, Prince Thor. I have no recollection of her. I merely have the same body as her son. But I am _not_ her son."

Ire surged in him at this heartlessness toward the kindest heart in Asgard. His fists clenched and he drew them up to his sides; he'd left Mjolnir with the guards at the entrance to the prison. "To do this to the rest of us…fine. But not to her. Not to _her_, Loki. She deserves better than that from you."

Loki looked nervous, meek, even, and made no effort to physically defend himself from what Thor knew was a threatening posture. "I do regret my earlier impropriety, it was uncalled for. And inappropriate. But please try to understand. Whenever I confess that I have no memory, I am immediately deluged with the most inane questions, and they become tiresome. 'Are you sure you don't remember this or that? What about when the king's father died? You must remember that. What about the earthquake five years ago? How could you forget it?' I…I sometimes…become irritable."

"'Irritable,'" Thor repeated with a snort. "Yes, Brother, you have been irritable for a very long time. Is that what you would call it, when you tried to make yourself a throne on Midgard?"

"A…a _throne_? I grow vegetables and try to harvest enough to sell the excess at the local market. Whatever he did, I tell you again, Prince Thor, I am not him."

"If you really have no memories and think yourself innocent," Thor began, not at all convinced this was the case, "why did you not say something? Why did you not plead your innocence when we were on Alfheim?"

Loki choked out a laugh. "I think you don't remember Alfheim the same way I do. I was too busy running for my life to try to have some kind of meaningful discussion with you. And I had no idea you were one of them. If you had knocked on my door, waited for me to open it, and said, "Good day, I'm Thor," I would have known you were one of the people from the papers, and I would have invited you in and given them to you. And by the time you dragged me through the bifrost in chains, please understand, I was afraid for my life, and you kept threatening me."

"You were afraid of me," Thor said with a hint of sarcasm even as he watched Loki very closely. He _had_ seen fear in Loki several times, but each time had thought it feigned. Loki may hate him, but Loki did not _fear_ him.

Loki's eyes widened for a moment. "Do you truly find that so difficult to believe? You're built like…like…like something _big_ that I've probably forgotten."

"And then you lied. 'Loki paid me to pretend to be him.' Have you not simply exchanged one lie for another?"

Loki's face fell, and he nudged his chair around to face Thor and sat down. "That was stupid." He looked up at Thor, then down at himself, then stood up again and pushed the chair away. "I was _afraid_, all right? How many times must I say it? I didn't think you would believe me. I wasn't thinking straight. I don't always…I don't always know what to say or to do. I've been alive for forty-eight days. It's not a lot of experience. I wasn't even thinking about the papers, that they would probably explain things to you. Not that it would have mattered, I suppose. You don't believe me."

"And why should I?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know how to prove it. I could prove that I _can_ remember something, but I see no way to prove that I cannot. Wait! Wait, yes, I can. The healers on Alfheim who did this. You can talk to them. I have their address. It's in my cabin. If it still stands. You can go see them. They'll explain everything."

"You could have bribed them."

Loki turned to the side as clear frustration washed over his face. "And perhaps I am not really standing in front of you right now."

Anger spiked in Thor again and he reached out an arm to swing it through the air where Loki appeared to be. His hand hit Loki's shoulder – solid – knocking him momentarily off balance.

Loki jerked away as he recovered his balance, then stepped back. "What are you…you people _are_ insane. Perhaps _you_ aren't real. _You_ did this to me. You planted these papers. You dragged me here and claimed to be my brother, then constantly tried to trick me. You put that woman before me to weep over her son. Perhaps it's me who is insane."

"I have wondered that myself." Thor made up for Loki's step back and grabbed the back of his neck to drag him even closer and peer deeply into his eyes. They were wide with fear and his breathing was unsteady. "You have crushed your mother," he said, his eyes boring into his brother's.

"She isn't my mother," Loki responded in a whisper. "Her son is gone."

Thor let go of Loki and pushed him away, causing him to stumble and nearly fall. "Then that's two sons you've taken from her."

Loki stared up at him, his shoulders oddly hunched a little. "Prince Thor, I don't-"

"Stop calling me that!" Thor roared. "I'm your brother!"

Loki shrank in on himself even further, looking now some four inches shorter than Thor rather than two. "But I'm telling you, I'm not. We may share the same blood, but that is all. I do not know you. I have no sibling bond with you. My only relationship with you frankly is one of fear because the first time I met you you tried to kill me, and you have never stopped threatening me this entire time. And if you're this…this _furious_ with me…with Loki, I mean, then shouldn't you be glad to be rid of him?"

Thor watched him, and was finally convinced, again, that this frightened thing was not his brother. _"We share the same blood?"_ Loki seemed to delight in pointing out that they did not. _"Glad to be rid of him?"_ If only it were that simple. Thor reached for his manacles, holding tight when Loki immediately tried to pull away, and, keyed to his touch, the shackles opened and he removed them. Empty shackles and chain in hand, Thor walked out of the cell.

"Prince Thor, wait!" he heard Loki call when he'd almost made it back to the other end of the corridor.

He halted, remained in place, and after a moment turned back. "Yes?" he said when he again stood before Loki's cell.

"Please, may I have your forgiveness for what I did in the Healing Room? I know I was wrong, and you have my sincerest apologies."

_This is not Loki at all._ Thor forced himself to look Loki…not-Loki…in the eye. "You have both my forgiveness and my pardon."

Loki gave a gasp followed by a deep exhale and shoulders sagging in obvious relief. "Thank you."

/

* * *

/

Kendrith watched the prince go, head spinning. He was beyond grateful that he'd received not only forgiveness but an official pardon. He assumed it was official, anyway; it had _sounded_ official. He was now guilty of nothing. He could be freed. _Surely they will free me…_

Much of what Thor had said left him baffled. The man insisted on calling him "Loki" as though, like the queen, he wanted him to _be_ Loki, but it didn't sound like the prince actually liked him very much. And that thing about taking two sons from her…Kendrith could only assume that somehow Loki's actions had driven a wedge between Thor and his mother, though he hadn't noticed any antagonism between then, and Thor had apparently come back here for the sole purpose of defending his mother. It was a detail, like so many others he'd heard and seen, that he had to set aside. It didn't matter. It was Loki's life, not his. Loki's family – _thank Yggdrasil!_ – not his.

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders though no one could see. He walked over to the glass wall. He knew it wouldn't work, but it seemed foolish not to at least try – he reached out a hand and found the glass eminently solid, with no inclination to part around him as it had Thor. He yanked his hand away from the glass when suddenly the other cells lit up and he could see his neighbor again, the short man with the thin hair and dangerous-looking teeth, now sitting on the floor and eating something from a tray resting on some kind of stool. The man had frozen mid-bite, glancing around and catching Kendrith's eye, before giving him an unsettling smirk and going back to his meal.

_I'm not handling this very well,_ Kendrith thought as he walked slowly away from the glass. _I need to do better. I need to be more…more…_ He shook his head and went over to the bed and flopped down on his stomach, putting his feet on the pillow-end so he could see anything that might go on outside his cell. the problem was he didn't know what he should be more of. _Polite,_ he thought with a grimace. He wasn't even doing very well at that, but then in his defense, it was hard to stay polite with a bunch of crazy people who alternated between accusing you of lying, insisting you remember things you don't, calling you a name that isn't yours over and over, sobbing over you, and occasionally trying to kill you. _They're royalty, you idiot,_ he reminded himself sternly. _They can behave however they like, and you must remain polite._ _But other than that…what?_

He needed to convince them it was true. To convince them not to hold Loki's crimes against him. He'd thought that perhaps if he made it very clear he was not Loki, they would quickly release him, but it hadn't worked, at least not yet. The king seemed particularly intractable. He felt like if he could just remember, he would know how to do this. But forty-eight days…some days…most days he felt like he didn't know how to do anything except grow a few vegetables. And even that had taken some trial and error and assistance, for all but the red-leaved radishes that grew like weeds. His first crop of cabbages had just been coming in when Asgard's prince had shown up and flattened them and burnt them to a crisp.

Kendrith got up and went over to the small desk and storage area against the white side wall, between the bed and the glass. He'd rifled through its drawers earlier looking for his belongings and found a few items of clothing, and he figured that if he'd slept it must by now be well into the next day, at least here on Asgard where it was later than it was in his Ljosalf village, so he should probably put on fresh clothes. He hadn't paid much attention to what was there before – if it wasn't _his_ he didn't particularly care what it was – but now he opened the drawers and looked at what was there item by item. The shirts were all green and the pants were all leather, two brown, two black. _Maybe green is what prisoners are made to wear here._ He looked across the corridor to his neighbor, and noted that he was wearing some kind of orange-brown color. _Well, then. The darker green, the really darker green, the lighter green, the green with the high collar, or the green with the metal edges. _He decided on the lighter green. Its design was simplest, a basic round neckline, a bit of shimmery-silvery-green edging at the wrists and neck, long-sleeved like all of the shirts. At least the material was thin. His hand lingered over the leather pants, but he couldn't bring himself to take them out of the drawer. He imagined putting them on and sweating buckets under Alfheim's twin suns, and his legs turning into a soggy stinking mess. He looked down. His own pants were a bit dusty at the ankles, but if he took them off and shook them, they would do.

He looked up at the glass again. _Am I supposed to change clothes in full view of anyone looking?_ His neighbor stared at him. _Does he intend to do anything all day besides stare at me?_ He gave the man another little wave; he just stared. "What do you have to do for some privacy in here?" he called out, hoping the man could hear him. Though he wasn't sure he wanted to start up a conversation with him. The man's grin widened, but he said nothing.

He closed the drawer and threw the clothes he'd pulled out onto the bed. He had his pride, but he supposed there were worse indignities than this.

Then he felt a familiar pressure. With a sinking feeling he looked around the cell again.

"Uh, hello? Is there anyone out there? I, uh-" Kendrith's face brightened in relief when a broad man covered in leather and metal came into view carrying something metal in front of him. "Thank you for coming. I needed to ask-"

"I didn't come because you called, _my prince_," he said, making it clear what he thought of Loki. "You have no status down here and I am not your servant. You do seem to need frequent reminders of that, for some reason. I came because you missed breakfast." The man had come to a stop in front of the glass and now reached out with the rectangular metal box and slid it straight through the glass and onto the white ledge that rose to around mid-way up his shins. He turned to walk away.

"No, wait, please!" Kendrith called to his back. The man did not turn. "Please! I need to…I have to relieve myself. What do I do?"

At this the guard did stop, and when he turned back around, he was beginning to laugh. When he reached the glass again he was laughing hard, and to Kendrith's great consternation, so was his diminutive neighbor, and so were other voices whose owners he could not see. "Do you really require instructions for that?" the guard finally asked, his voice still breathless with laughter, his face red.

Kendrith felt his own face growing red, and at the same time he felt tears prick at his eyes._ Calm down, calm down,_ he told himself. "Is there no toilet here?" he asked in a steady voice that he considered a small victory.

"The same place as it's always been. I know you left us for a little while, but you haven't been gone long enough to lose your way in here."

"Would you please just humor me and tell me."

"You aren't supposed to talk to him," came another man's voice, followed by a second guard appearing beside the first. "Come on."

"I just need to know-"

"In the back," the second man said, then gave the first man a shove to the shoulder and both walked away.

Kendrith went to the back of the cell and stared at the solid white wall. His expression suddenly cleared in understanding. _Solid like the glass…_ He reached out and his hand hit the wall and stopped. He released a breath, then methodically made his way down the wall until near the corner, behind the bed, his hand suddenly went through the wall when he pressed in a particular spot. He gasped in surprise and relief. It felt strange, an odd pressure and a buzz of magic. He pulled his hand free, grabbed the clean clothes on the bed, and came back, this time stepping right through the wall.

The hidden room was tiny but contained the basic facilities, including a small thick glass box of a shower. So here, there was privacy, a reprieve from the stares and the laughter. Kendrith knew instantly why everything here was so miniscule, why there was barely room to turn around, much less to stretch out. A prisoner who could get comfortable back here might be tempted to linger, to get away from the eyes of the other prisoners and the guards and whomever else might come by. It was _not_ comfortable back here.

Kendrith felt the last remaining tatters of his bravado disintegrate, and lingered anyway.

It wasn't just Thor that didn't like Loki. No one did, it seemed, except his mother. Kendrith didn't like him either. In fact, in that moment, hiding alone in a cramped bathroom, Kendrith hated Loki.

/

* * *

/

"He says we should talk to the healers on Alfheim who did this to him."

Odin and Frigga sat at the table in their dining room before untouched plates of breakfast.

"I suppose we should," Odin said after a moment.

Frigga's eyes were fixed somewhere in the middle of the table. She looked dazed.

When it appeared no further response was forthcoming, Thor pulled out a chair and sat. No servants were around to prepare him a plate, and he made no effort to do so himself. He wondered what he'd interrupted with his arrival, or if perhaps they'd just been sitting there in silence this entire time.

"You were right, Mother," he finally said. "He isn't Loki."

Frigga slowly turned toward him. "And does he have some other mother, then?"

Thor merely looked at her, uncertain how to respond.

"Just because he doesn't remember that I'm his mother doesn't mean I'm not." She pushed her chair back and stood.

"Frigga," Odin said softly, chidingly.

"I won't give up on him, Odin."

"What do you think you will accomplish, going there again?"

"I told him I would bring him breakfast. I think I will feed him."

She turned on her heel and left, and this time no one followed.

* * *

/

_OK, so, sometimes your review comments really stoke my imagination, and, when "female'wraith" wrote "I think Thor will try to undo it manually:)," referring to what Thor appeared to be on his way back to Loki's cell to do, the humorous turn of phrase meant I couldn't help but respond with the following alternate scenario from what happened above, which I wanted to share with everyone, too:_

Thor pinned Loki firmly against him, arms tight over Loki's throat and chest, facing the stone wall just a few feet away. "Now hold still, Loki," he told his struggling brother. "Don't worry. Natasha explained everything to me. It's called 'cognitive recalibration.'" Loki began struggling even harder, and shouting and spewing invectives. "Relax, brother, you'll be fine in no time. Your body is stronger than Clint's, though, so helping you may require several attempts."

_It still makes me laugh. Some version of it will probably pop up in my _Loki Loves His Local Library_ parody fic I intend to write...at some point._

_Thanks for reading/reviewing/etc., and I cannot **wait** to give you the letter to Thor. The next chapter is titled "Frigga."_


	9. Frigga

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 9: Frigga**

The morning was growing late when Frigga returned to Loki's cell with a silver tray. This time she stepped through the wall and his cell was sealed from the others as soon as she entered. He was sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed, and he looked up at her but otherwise did not react.

"You're looking more…more like yourself, I suppose," she said, setting the tray down on the white ledge in front of the glass.

He sighed and looked away. "Because I'm wearing some of his clothes? I simply thought I should change into something fresh."

"Yes, and because you're wearing green."

"And why—" Suddenly he stood and gave one of those odd bows from the waist again. "Forgive me, Your Majesty."

"Sit," she said with a frown, then retrieved the tray and brought it over to him where he settled back on the bed, this time with his legs hanging over the edge. "And please don't call me that. I brought you some breakfast."

He watched her as she sat down on the bed beside him, and Frigga tried hard to ignore how he seemed almost afraid of her. He lifted the lid and inspected the dishes underneath it – meat, eggs, plain fruit, and a strawberry pastry topped with cream, with a glass of the tangy orange bogfruit juice he'd taken a liking to in the last few years. "Thank you," he said after a few moments, then took his fork and tested out first the eggs, then the pastry, which he took a second bite of.

"Do you like it? It's one of your favorites. These are all some of your favorite breakfast dishes."

The interest he'd shown in the pastry disappeared, and he wiped some cream from the corner of his mouth, then covered the tray. "The guards already brought me breakfast, actually. I'm not hungry."

"I know, but that is a standard prisoners' meal, and this…these dishes…" She gave up and took the tray back over to the ledge, then returned to her spot on his bed. "I'll leave it there just in case. The guards can take it away when they bring your mid-day meal. Green is your color, by the way. Thor's color is red. It's one of the things that looked strange to us about you when you returned. You boys don't wear each other's colors."

"He never wore any color besides green?" Loki asked, his distaste for the idea plain.

"When dressed casually, sometimes he wore other colors. But when dressed formally he…you…were always in green."

"How tiresome it must have been."

Frigga laughed a little. "You liked green. And that," she said, reaching out to brush her fingertips against his sleeve – he shrank away from her – "is an undertunic."

"Undertunic? Something is supposed to be worn over it?"

"Yes," she said with a smile.

He looked down at himself and appeared to be inspecting the tunic. "Must I wear something over it?"

"No, I suppose not, not if you don't wish to. It just looks a little…unusual."

He nodded. "I don't wish to."

"You have on your old boots, too."

He looked down at them. "There were conveniently two of them. I prefer my own shoes, but one of them got left behind on Alfheim when your son was dragging me to Asgard."

Frigga clasped her hands over her lap and stared down at her intertwined fingers for a moment. "I don't like the way you're behaving. It isn't like you to be cruel. Not to me." She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye as she spoke, and he remained silent for a moment himself before responding.

"It isn't my intention to be cruel. It _is _my intention to make you see that I'm not the person you wish me to be."

"Because you wish to be released?"

"Yes. Is that so unreasonable of me? I have committed one crime, and that was my violence toward the prince. But he pardoned me himself. With his pardon, I'm free of that guilt, am I not?"

"Perhaps. It's your father's…the king's…your _father's_ decision to make. But nothing came of it in the end, so I don't expect you will be punished for it, if you have Thor's pardon."

"And Loki's sentence? Will I have to serve it?"

"I…don't know. That is also your father's decision," she said, growing more uncomfortable by the minute. This wasn't what she'd come here to discuss. She'd wanted to serve him his favorite foods, remind him of some of the happiest moments in his life, to make his remember, to at least make him _want_ to remember.

"But surely you must have some influence. You can speak to him. Ask him to-"

"You are so certain of my position. Just because you don't remember your crimes, doesn't mean you didn't commit them." _Just because you don't remember that I'm your mother, doesn't mean I'm not._

"I'm sorry, I…I just assumed…you seemed so upset over…"

Frigga turned and grabbed his hands; he tried to pull them away but she held fast. "Loki, I love you with all my heart, with every breath in my lungs. Of course I want you to be free. I can't bear seeing you down here. But seeing you down here is better than…" She stopped and calmed herself. "You have done wrong, not even I can deny it. And there's a price that must be paid for that."

"Loki no longer exists. Is that price not high enough?"

Frigga swallowed hard against the tears that threatened to come. _This is Loki. You _are_ Loki!_ her mind shouted. _You exist. You are right in front of me._ The same face, Loki's face. An expression she'd seen there many times before, questioning, with a hint of pain, and behind it all a depth of thought and a fierce intelligence she'd recognized even in his childhood, when he would stop and stare hard at something, trying to figure it out, to understand it. He pulled his hands away again, and this time she did not resist.

"If I _am_ made to bear his punishment…what exactly is it? How long am I to be imprisoned?"

"But you know how- Or, I suppose you don't. Six hundred and fifty years."

Loki's jaw fell slack. "Six hundred and fifty _years_? But I have not yet even seen a full year. Not even a full season. Six hundred and fifty years…"

Frigga watched as his eyes went unfocused, his every emotion laid bare on his face. "You've already served two. A little more than that, actually. And if you would just agree to make reparations to Jotunheim and Midgard, it would only be a hundred and fifty. A hundred and forty-eight. It's a light punishment, Loki. Your father was trying to show mercy. Many of his advisors called for much more severe punishments, even…even your death." That prospect was almost too awful to voice aloud, but Loki did not even blink.

"If it comes to that, of course I will make reparations in order to gain my freedom as soon as possible, but does it not bother you that I wouldn't even know why I was making reparations?"

"I don't know, Loki," she said into her hands, "I just…" _I just want you back._

"And if I must answer for his crimes against Jotunheim and Midgard, will I not also have to answer for his most recent crime?"

"His…what do you mean?" Frigga asked, forcing her hands back to her lap and sitting up straighter.

"What is the punishment for escaping from prison?"

Frigga drew in a deep breath and looked away. She hadn't thought of that. Trust Loki to think of every possibility. "It depends," she finally said. "Usually…flogging."

"Flogging… How many lashes?"

"You sent three guards to the Healing Room. One barely survived." She paused. Such a punishment had an element of status tied to it; Loki and Thor had both received punishments over the centuries, some of them serious, but never had either of them been flogged. Never had either of them escaped from prison like a criminal before, either. "It will be many. Many lashes." She stared at the glass wall across from her and Loki. "Many days."

"And you would allow this? You're my mother."

Her head whipped around to face him. "Loki…don't." _Don't manipulate me. Don't use me, as though I'm no more important to you than a passing servant._

"You're my _mother._ You gave _birth _to me."

Frigga froze, lips parted. _He doesn't remember._ She had a choice to make all over again. A choice that was truly hers, and not Odin's, though perhaps now, Odin would agree with her. Lying was tempting; things were complicated enough, and it wouldn't even be a lie, just a lack of correction. But this was a chance to do things differently. Perhaps, to do things right. "I didn't," she finally said.

"You…what?" He looked at her with what appeared to be genuine confusion.

"I didn't give birth to you. Loki, please believe me, it makes no difference, you're my son and I'm your mother and I love you no less than if I _had_ given birth to you. But…I didn't."

He looked at her with wide bright eyes, and his confusion slowly cleared. She wondered what he was thinking, but he spoke before she could ask. "It doesn't matter, and I don't want to hear any more about it. The only thing that matters is whether you can get me out of here."

"Loki-"

"If the king won't free me, then help me escape. You're the queen. You can do it."

"Loki, I-"

"Mother, do this for me, please."

Frigga stared at him, at the gray-blue eyes that pleaded and yet looked so cold. He'd called her "mother," the word she'd treasured from him, well aware that he did not bestow familial terms on Thor or Odin. But he didn't know her. He used the word not because she was "mother" to him, but because he wished to manipulate her emotions, to maneuver her into being his co-conspirator. This was new and alien. Horrific. She swallowed and looked away from his imploring eyes. "My son would never ask me this. You ask me to act against my husband. To act against Asgardian law and against my king. You ask me to take a flogging in your place."

He drew back, and guilt passed over his face. So, Frigga observed, he was not the cold thing he'd seemed a moment earlier. And with forty-eight days of memories, perhaps he himself did not yet know who he was, what his character was, how he should behave, even how he _wanted_ to behave. Perhaps he did not know what he was asking.

"I'm sorry," he said, but she wondered what he was apologizing for, or if he even knew himself.

"I would, you know. I would do anything for you, and I would take any punishment in your place, if I thought it would change anything. If I thought it would change _you_. Or…who you used to be."

He looked just as uncomfortable now as she had felt earlier, and she knew she was overwhelming him. "Let us first see what can be done _within_ the law before we contemplate circumventing it, all right? Your father hasn't made any decisions yet. And I think we will first visit the healers you went to on Alfheim, as you suggested to Thor."

"The healers _he_ went to."

"Yes…well…to you I may not be a mother right now, but to me you are, always have been, and always will be a son. You are not two separate people."

"Do you not believe me?" he asked, as though he couldn't comprehend that he still might not be believed. But not even Thor doubted now.

"I believe you. But that doesn't mean I'm giving up on you."

"I wish you would understand. The one you don't want to give up on is _gone_. The only thing I want from anyone on Asgard is simply to recognize that and let me go so I can live my own life."

"Loki…"

He turned away, clearly annoyed.

She reminded herself to try to avoid using his name, though it was hard. She loved his name, and Thor's, thought them both so apt to their personalities, and the names themselves held so many memories for her, her saying them sharply when they'd gotten into trouble, with fear when she couldn't find them, with pride as they grew into men, with teasing as they'd become friends as well as sons, and no matter what else, always with love. But she could try, because she knew it upset him. The other name, though, the one he'd insisted on earlier, that one she refused to use. "Please, will you tell me what that glass vessel is that you had in your bag?"

He looked surprised, even concerned, she thought. "It's called a memory casket. It holds my memories. _His_ memories."

Frigga grasped onto these words with all of her attention. "Your memories have been preserved? In that vessel? It's a casket? We all felt the magic in it."

"Yes. So it was explained to me."

"Then your memories can be returned to you," she said, leaning forward, part of her wanting to race right back up all the stairs, retrieve the casket, and do whatever must be done to bring Loki back to himself. But first she had to learn the "whatever must be done."

"The healers said they cannot. And even if they could, I do not wish for them to."

"What? But why not?" Frigga asked in confusion. "Surely you don't want to live like this, not knowing your family, not remembering anything of your entire life? Loki, I know that…things perhaps do not look…very positive right now. But your life has contained so much good, and it can again. It _will_ again. You have-"

"I really don't want to hear this, if you don't mind. I obviously…_he _obviously went to a lot of trouble to forget. I won't undo that. And I remind you, I _can't_ undo that, even if I wanted to."

"But you keep it with you. You had so few possessions in that bag, yet this…memory casket, and the letters for your father and brother and me, you took those."

"They were important. Those letters…I knew they were important to him, so I kept them close at hand, for whenever they might be needed. And the casket…I suppose it reminds me that…I don't know. I was told that I should keep it for legal reasons. But it isn't because of some notion that those memories will somehow be restored."

Frigga frowned as she mulled this over. If his memories had been removed and preserved, it seemed only logical that they could also be returned. If he did not _wish_ them returned…that was a separate hurdle to be crossed. "Well, as I said, we will visit these so-called healers you went to on Alfheim, and discuss what to do from there," she said, standing. She needed to tell Odin what she'd learned.

"The healers _he_ went to on Alfheim, not I."

"Yes…well…" She sighed. She had nothing to say to that. She bent down to cup his head in her hands and kiss his forehead as she often did, but he leaned back and turned his head aside. Never had he denied her affection so. She set her jaw. She would find out what was necessary to fix this. "I'll come see you again soon."

"There's no need."

"_I_ will need it. And I _will_ come see you again soon."

Loki frowned and kept his eyes fixed somewhere around the foot of the bed; it drew her back to his youth, when he would be frustrated with something or other but unwilling to discuss it without her prompting.

Frigga left, but did not immediately seek out Odin, or Thor. She went to her chambers, which Odin had already departed for the day, and asked that Loki's bag, and the contents they'd pulled from it and left in Odin's office, be brought up to their library. When it arrived, she took the letter Loki had written to her, settled down in one of the large dark brown leather chairs, and read from the beginning, on through the half-way point where she'd stopped before, and to the end, where she was grateful that she was alone and no one could see her clutch the letter to her chest and lose herself in her tears.

/

* * *

/

_My dear mother,_

_I cannot know the circumstances under which you are reading this letter, but probably by now you have at least guessed that something is different about me. What I have to say will be difficult for you to hear, and for your sake I regret it. For your sake and your sake alone, I regret a great many things._

_I wish for something new. I abhor stagnation. To be more plain, I abhor boredom. I long for something more for myself than what Asgard would have of me, whether the incarceration of the next six hundred and forty-eight years, or the troubles that would plague me for the rest of my life there. You know as well as I do that things can never be what they once were, although I understand that your heart tells you otherwise. I cannot blame you for that. For you, dear, gentle mother, I would turn back time and live in ignorance in your kind embrace._

_For myself, however, I must pursue a different path. I must forge an entirely new beginning._

_Tomorrow morning I will go into town to bring an end to my old life and embark upon a new one. There is some risk in the procedure, but I have scoured Alfheim and found the best mind healers in the realm. Their success rate is near perfect, and I do not anticipate any complications._

_When they have completed their task, the person I am now will no longer exist, and a new person will exist in his place. Every thought, every experience, everything and everyone – every memory – will have been removed. I will be a blank slate, ready for whatever great adventure presents itself. You know that I have always enjoyed being the instigator of unpredictability…inciting chaos, some would say. This will be my grandest stroke yet, for I will be creating of my own life the purest unpredictability of all._

_Mother, know that I am well, and that I make this decision of my own free will, neither lightly nor in haste. Know that in this act I do not seek death, but rather a new life and a new journey, unburdened by all that has come before._

_There are things I wish to say to you, but I find myself at a loss for words. You are the only thing that troubles me about my decision. Of all my memories, if I am tempted to cling to any it is those of you. You have been my constant, the one I could return to no matter how far adrift I was, no matter who or what I am. Yet I do not wish to be tempted to return ever again, and so for that reason I must cleave you above all else from my memories._

_In the end, Mother, you will see that this will be for the best as well. I have brought you nothing but misfortune. It is better that I not know you, so that I do not suffer with the knowledge of the misfortune I will yet bring. It is better, too, that you not be burdened by any lingering sense of obligation to me in your pain._

_In closing, I ask one final thing of you as your son, if you still consider me such once you read this. I ask that my continued imprisonment not be insisted upon. The man judged guilty of the crimes that earned this sentence will not face this punishment, but rather a man who remembers nothing of such crimes, a man who is guilty of nothing and innocent of everything._

_Goodbye, Mother. Forget me as well, I beseech you. Forget the Loki who writes this inadequate letter. May I instead live on in your own memories only as you would have me be – noble, heroic, good. Forgive me that I could not truly be these things for you._

_Loki_

* * *

/

_A reader mentioned the book _The Demolished Man_ by Alfred Bester to me - if you find the sort of ethical/moral quandary surrounding memory removal interesting, you may enjoy this novel (you can Google it, it's an award-winning novel). It's gone on my to-read list._

_I hope you don't mind the repeated material of Loki's letter to Frigga here. I wanted to present it as a whole, so this is kind of the way it worked out. It's in Monotype Corsiva font in my Word doc (looks a bit nicer than regular italics), and Loki's name is right-justified...which there's no option for here. Wish I could give you that version._

_These first 9 chapters have all taken place on the same day. Chapter 10 "Rebirth" takes place on the next day...and forty-eight days ago._


	10. Rebirth

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 10: Rebirth**

He woke to the warmth of sunlight on his cheek, his head cushioned on cozy softness. He took a deep, slow breath, and let it out just as slowly. _I don't think I ever want to get up,_ he thought. Coolness on his left cheek, warmth on his right, he thought he might never have felt so comfortable and at peace in his life.

A long time passed – many minutes, perhaps even half an hour – before he bothered to open his eyes. There was no rush, after all; he could not recall any appointment or schedule he was beholden to. A small wooden table with a tall lamp, wood with a thin metal shade, filled his vision. _A nice lamp,_ he thought, before narrowing his eyes at it. He was quite certain he'd never seen it before. His gaze rose and he saw a wood plank wall, and in it, an open door, beyond which was a wood floor, wooden walls. He'd never seen any of it before. His heart began pounding. _I've been kidnapped,_ he thought.

He pushed himself up enough to flip over so that he was sitting up. He wasn't alone, he saw then in growing fear, as a man in a long yellow robe stood from a chair not far from the foot of the bed.

"Stay back," he said to the man, pressing his back against the bed's wooden headboard and squashing a pillow behind him. Instinctively he put a hand up and pushed, sending a wave of energy that made the other man fall forcefully back into the chair and the chair rock on its legs.

A woman then appeared in the open doorway, wearing the same yellow robe, eyes wide. "Please, be calm," she said, lingering just inside the bedchamber, while the man in the bed sat rigidly, his hand still outstretched, his eyes darting between the man and the woman. "We aren't here to hurt you. We're healers. We're here to help you."

"I know that you're frightened," the man in the chair said, making no effort to stand again. "It's a natural reaction. Your surroundings are unfamiliar to you, correct?"

The man did not relax his vigilance or readiness to defend himself, though no move was made against him, and the two in yellow robes did not seem particularly hostile. "Correct," he finally said, and somehow his own voice sounded strange to him.

"And can you tell me your name, and where you're from?"

_What an odd question,_ the man thought. _These two must have brought me here…or…_ He glanced down at himself – bare-chested, white linens and a plain gray blanket pooled at his waist, where he could see the top of a pair of thin white cloth pants, also unfamiliar._ They said they're healers. Perhaps I'm here to be healed? But what happened to me?_

"Your name and origins, if you please," the man in the chair prompted.

The man in the bed finally relaxed his posture, letting his hand fall to his lap. _If they had kidnapped me, they wouldn't need to ask me my name._ "It's…" Nothing. Emptiness. A void. This wasn't a question that required thought. "I'm…" A gaping hole. A black pit from which nothing emerged. "I…I don't understand. I don't…I can't…but…" It was getting difficult to breathe.

"Calm down, now, everything's all right. Will you permit Pardit here to examine you?"

He stopped talking to focus on breathing. The woman, Pardit he presumed – _and how lovely for her that she knows _her_ name_ – approached, and she was tall and plump and smiling and he did not try to stop her. She slowly took from a pouch in her robe a long thin item apparently made of glass and moved it around his head, then pressed a warm hand against his chest in various locations.

"His mind has healed well. His heart is beating much too rapidly, though," she said to the other man, before standing up straight and addressing him. "It's not unusual. I would like you to drink something to help calm you. It won't interfere with your ability to think and it won't make you fall asleep. Will you do this? Landis will explain everything once you do."

Her voice was soft, soothing, kind, and she seemed to truly be a healer, so he drained the small metal canister she took from her pouch. It was very sweet, and he thought perhaps he didn't like sweet things, and then he began to grow agitated because he didn't know whether he liked sweet things, and then the difficulty breathing and the hammering in his chest started again, and then his muscles all relaxed at the same time and he felt warm and calm and good. Hands were on his chest again and they felt good, too. Soft, comforting, reassuring.

"That's it, there you go. He's feeling better now," she said to the other man, still in the chair. She opened a drawer in the little table by the bed and pulled out a small bundle of white cloth. "You can put this on if you like."

He took the cloth without hesitation – it was a simple tunic, short sleeves, V-neck – and pulled it on. She smiled, and he thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He smiled back.

The other person, Landis, then rose from the chair again at last, and from the wooden desk behind him he took a rounded vase filled with swirling green gases. Pardit picked up the chair and carried it over to where she had stood, right next to the bed. Landis sat down, and held up the strange vessel. The man who still sat on the bed found his gaze unavoidably drawn to it, getting lost in its swirls and eddies, its mystery and beauty.

"This is your memory casket," Landis said, holding the object closer so the man could see it better. "It's a perfect name, isn't it? A casket. A container. A vessel for safeguarding something precious. Jewels, relics, power. Memories, in this case. Every memory, from your birth up to the moment your memories were extracted. Your death, in a way. For a casket may also hold something which is precious but is lost. Something which is dead and gone. This casket holds all the memories you have surrendered and lost. In a very real sense, it contains the old you that is dead and gone. It is your casket. Your memory casket."

_Casket. Dead. Lost. Surrendered._ Somehow he knew these words should stir a strong reaction in him, but he simply looked up at the man in relaxed confusion. "My memories…are in there?"

"They are."

"But I remember many things. How can my memories be in there?"

"What do you remember?"

"Pardit. Landis. This room. Many…many things."

"What do you remember from before you woke up in this bed today?"

"I…," he paused, faltering. "I remember many things." He was certain he did. He was a man. He had lived his life. He had been places and done things. Many places. Many things. He was certain of it. _I will remember them. I know I will._

"The adjustment will be difficult, in the beginning. Regrets are normal. Mourning is normal. Anger is normal. But your old self chose this. To break the bonds with the old life and make a fresh start in a new one, free and unfettered. Doors are open to you now, and you may choose whether to walk through them, or not," Landis said, twisting in his seat and extending an arm out to the open door to next room.

It made him nervous. Suspicious. It was too well-planned. Staged. He tried to push through the effect of whatever it was he'd drunk. His mind began to sharpen, and he realized he didn't have to believe what he was being told. "You said I chose this. How do I know you're telling the truth? Perhaps you did this to me against my will. How can I know you didn't?"

"Your questions are also normal. And expected. Please watch." Landis reached into the pouch of his robe and pulled out an oblong piece of glass about the size of a thumb. He squeezed the ends of it together in front of the man's face, and an image appeared above it.

The man in the bed sat up straighter and watched, intrigued. The man in the image was much paler than the two healers with their golden brown skin, hair black to their brown. The projected image began to speak. "I make this statement to certify, for the strictures of the laws of Alfheim, that I voluntarily, of my own free will, have elected to undergo memory extraction at the private clinic of Landis Vale, following the required period of deliberation. I ask that my decision be accepted, and respected. This is my binding approval and consent for said procedure."

"I don't understand," he said when the voice stopped, the voice that sounded similar to his. "What has this to do with me?"

Landis then returned this bit of glass to his pouch and withdrew another one, half its size. When he squeezed its ends, more glass appeared above it, and in the glass was another image of the same man as before, but this man looked as confused as the man in the bed. Behind this man was a wooden headboard. On this man was a white V-neck short-sleeved tunic. The man's jaw fell slack, and with it, the man in the glass. Hands flew up to both men's lips, cheeks, noses, foreheads, black hair, ears – ears curved at the top and not pointed like Pardit's and Landis's. He clenched his jaw, shook his head, pushed the glass – the mirror – away roughly and launched himself out of the bed so fast he didn't quite get free of the bedding and tripped and fell to his hands and knees on the wood floor. He scrambled up and looked to the door that he desperately wanted to run through, but Pardit and Landis were between him and it. He backed himself into the far corner instead and pressed his hands tightly over his eyes.

He flinched hard when he felt hands on his arms, but the hands simply rubbed him lightly, not attempting to drag him out of the corner he'd sought safety in.

"Calm down, calm down," he heard Pardit say her steady, soft voice.

"I've...I've never seen th- that man before in my l- life!" he sputtered through the partial obstruction of his wrists.

"Of course you haven't. Today is your day of birth. The first day of your new life. Does a baby know what it looks like when it comes from the womb?"

_Babies…wombs…birth…_ "But I'm a man, I'm not a…a baby."

A hand went all the way up his arm to his wrist, rubbing, and finally nudging. "Another dose, please, you're going through quite a shock now, and putting your body at risk."

Slowly, reluctantly, he let her tug away one of his hands, then dropped the other, though he kept his eyes closed. He felt the coolness of the metal pressed against his fingers, and with a shaking hand brought it to his lips and downed more of the sweet liquid. The effect was almost instantaneous. He gave a sigh as the tension left his body, and swayed on his feet when Pardit began to lead him back to bed. More hands were on him then, and instinctively he opened his eyes; Landis was there, too, guiding him to the bed, supporting him. He sat and swung his legs onto the bed, settling against the headboard again, then drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He was barefoot; he stared at his toes and wiggled them. His own toes did not look familiar to him.

"Now, doesn't that feel better?" Pardit asked, settling into the chair Landis had been in.

He nodded.

"Let's continue, then. Yes, of course you're a man. And isn't that better? You don't need to learn how to talk, or walk, or control your body. Some tasks may require a bit of thought, some exposure and experience for them to come back to you, or for you to realize you already know how to do them, but your procedural memory is intact. You won't need to learn reading and writing. We've already seen that you've not lost your ability with magic. Do you see? You can begin pursuing your new life almost immediately."

He nodded again, for this sounded right and good. _New life. Immediately._ But perhaps not right-now immediately, he thought. For now he preferred to sit on his bed, rest his cheek against his knees, and listen to Pardit's and Landis's voices – especially Pardit's – as they further explained what he would recall, what he would not recall, and all the wonderful possibilities that lay ahead of him.

/

* * *

/

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice," Frigga said to the Light Elf who bowed to her, Odin, and Thor.

"Of course, for such distinguished visitors, how could we not?" the man, Landis Vale, said. "If you'll just give us a moment, Pardit will retrieve another chair for us."

Thor looked around the office they were led into. Decorated in light shades of blues and greens with furniture made from a pale, nearly white wood, it reminded him more of a relaxing visit to the seashore than a place where one went to have one's memories ripped out and stored away in some magical urn. He turned his attention next back to Landis. Thor didn't trust him. His face and body language betrayed nervousness, especially when Thor narrowed his eyes at him and worked his jaw.

The woman, Pardit Drakel, returned with another chair, and the five of them sat around a circular table of that pale wood, translucent colored glass covering the tabletop. His mother leaned forward and rested her arms on the table; Thor was afraid if he did the same he would break it.

"Let us not waste time in idle conversation," Frigga said. "We know what you've done to our son Loki. We need to know what is necessary to undo it."

Thor glanced at Frigga and Odin with some measure of surprise. It was unusual for Frigga to command the discussion or speak first when acting in her official capacity. On the other hand, he supposed she was acting now less as Asgard's queen than as Loki's mother. Odin, meanwhile, sat stiffly in his chair and fixed a hard stare on Landis.

"I can appreciate that, Your Majesty. However, please understand, we are limited in what we can discuss. We guarantee our patients that their privacy will be respected. I can tell you that yes, we treated Loki. And I can tell you that his treatment was by his own choice, and met all the legal requirements for elective treatment. I can show you the statement he made to verify this, if you like."

"Please do," Frigga said, her words cold and harsh despite their surface politeness.

"Right away," he said, standing and going over to a tall, narrow cabinet. He keyed in something on buttons on the side of the cabinet and a tray opened with a small crystal on it, one of those the Ljosalf used for much of their particular blend of technology and magic. He retook his seat, pressed the ends of the crystal, and Loki's image appeared above it. _Loki_, Thor knew immediately, just from the look in his eye, and not this Kendrith who now wore Loki's body.

"I make this statement to certify, for the strictures of the laws of Alfheim, that I voluntarily, of my own free will, have elected to undergo memory extraction at the private clinic of Landis Vale, following the required period of deliberation. I ask that my decision be accepted, and respected. This is my binding approval and consent for said procedure."

"What is this required period of deliberation?" Frigga asked.

"We require a minimum of one week from the first appointment, if the patient has clearly already put much thought into the decision," Landis explained. "Otherwise we require one month. For Loki, we had set his deliberative period at a month, but he _had_ already thought it through, and he came back to us and wished to change it to a week. We agreed to this."

"One week. One week and you…you all but end his life?"

"His life has not ended. It has simply been renewed."

"Renewed," Frigga repeated with disdain.

"Can it be undone?" Odin asked quietly.

"In some cases, yes, though the return of memories brings greater risk than the extraction of memories. Pardit, would you pour our guests a glass of water, please?"

"We are not thirsty," Thor put in testily, for the question had been asked twice now and not yet fully answered.

"Nevertheless," Landis said, as Pardit went over to a small table against the wall, and from it brought to the table a tray on which she had placed a pitcher of water and three glasses.

She poured water into each glass; no one drank.

Landis then lifted the half-empty pitcher. "Can you pour the water back in, exactly as it was before?"

Thor swallowed, then looked to his left to gauge his mother's reaction. She looked nervous, but no less determined.

"It's a poor illustration, of course. Water and memories are not the same thing, nor are a pitcher and a mind. A skilled healer can accomplish much. But I trust you see the point. In this case however, there are two additional obstacles to restoring Loki's memories. First, Loki's new self has not expressed a desire to have his memories returned. Second, before the procedure, Loki enchanted the memory casket to prevent the forcible return of his memories, because, as he explained, he was concerned that someone may attempt this."

"Father, surely you can overcome this magic."

"I would ask you not to attempt it. You've heard in Loki's own words, this _was_ his decision."

"The glass vessel with the green mist. Yesterday he told my wife that this was a memory casket. This is the one you refer to?" Odin asked.

"It is," Landis confirmed.

"He calls himself Kendrith now. How much of Loki is left in him?" Odin asked.

"Ah. He had not chosen a name for himself when we last saw him. As for Loki…this is a question for a philosopher, not a healer." Landis then proceeded to explain the casket's use in the memory extraction process, and the process itself, including the loss of all personal memory, but the retention of procedural memory that enabled a patient to carry out some familiar tasks and retain certain skills.

"Why?" Frigga asked when he was done. "Why did he do this? You saw him. How was he? Was he upset? Angry?"

"His reasons are his own," Pardit said. "It's not for us to say. But he was neither upset nor angry. He was…determined, I would say. Committed."

Further questions yielded few further answers, and Thor was soon following his parents out of the clinic and down the street, back toward the park area where Heimdall had sent them after their visit to Loki's cottage this morning, the day after Loki was found there.

Frigga was visibly angry. "It was all I could do not to call them the barbarians they are."

"We can _compel_ them to undo this," Thor said. "Father can remove Loki's enchantment, and I can bring Loki back here and insist they reverse this damage."

"And if my interference destroys the casket? What if then Loki…Kendrith…of his own volition later decides he wishes to have his memories back?"

"Then we will have to convince him to choose this now," Frigga said.

"_I_ can convince him," Thor said, anger growing in him. It was lunacy. Loki's memories were right there, back in the palace, and Loki was there in his prison cell. He didn't need to be given a choice in the matter.

"Not everything can be solved with force, Thor," Odin said in a tone of voice Thor had learned to recognize, a tone that told him he would be better off not saying anything at all at this point.

He felt a soft hand grasp his. He looked at his mother, but she was staring straight ahead, and Thor had no idea what she might be thinking. He held his peace, but he could not accept that this was the end.

* * *

/

_The-man-on-the-bed's reaction to seeing himself in the mirror is inspired by a recent real-life account from a man with retrograde amnesia._

_"Ranting" guest 9/19 - rant all you like! And no worries, I get that you're ranting at the characters, not me. I do love toying with characters' imperfections, and occasionally with expectations of how a character "should" behave, and Frigga has displayed some imperfection here...and will again in the next chapter. I suspect you will rant again. ;-) I will say that I myself cannot rant against any of them, because I also write from each of their heads and want to defend them...even as I deliberately draw out their imperfections. It's strange but fun._

_jacquelinelittle (ch. 4) - it's an excellent idea! My thinking was they wouldn't be inclined to try that because of the risk of putting the Ice Casket in Loki's hands. (ch. 9) And it's amazing how little sleep one can get and still function. Ha. Though the pace of this one has slowed down, as I expected.  
_

_Guest 9/19 wondering about Loki being "un-Loki'ed" (lovely word BTW, bonus points!) - there you have it. Sort of. You might get the other side of that scene, right before the procedure, later. Probably you will._

_And for everyone who's noted how heartbreaking, sad, tragic, depressing it is (if I made you cry with Frigga's letter it kinda makes me happy, ha)...I wish I could tell you it will be sweetness and light next chapter. It will not. Will there ever be sweetness and light? Maybe. Sort of. Ch. 11 is most likely titled "Swinging Doors."_


	11. Behind Doors

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 11: Behind Doors**

"Loki is a terrible field cook."

"Is he?" Frigga asked, though she hadn't really processed the question.

"Well…no worse than I, I suppose," Thor said. "Do you think he really cooks in that kitchen himself?"

"I don't know," she said, then thought back over what Thor had asked. "Yes, I suppose he must. There's no evidence of servants." They were riding slowly back from the observatory, making their way down the long bridge. Odin had gone on ahead, and Thor had stayed with her.

Upon arriving at Loki's cottage on Alfheim, they'd gone straight inside, Odin first in case Loki had set traps of some sort that Heimdall had not seen. Frigga had pressed herself to Thor's side, ceasing his protests that he did not need to wait outside. When Odin told them it was safe, they followed him in through the open doorway, where only a bit of wood was attached uselessly to the hinges.

Frigga wasn't sure what she'd expected, but somehow this wasn't it. Loki appreciated finery, more so than Thor, really, but the room they entered was almost spartan with its few simple wood furnishings, walls bare except for a painting of a market scene on the wall to the left. Thor went ahead and she slowly followed, stepping over the debris that had once been Loki's front door. A small stone fireplace was against the back wall. Alfheim was, for the most part, a warm realm, but its temperatures dropped rapidly once the twin suns set. She wondered if Loki had sat beside that fire late into the night, wondering who he was, who his family was, if anyone out there was looking for him.

To the right was the kitchen, and a small rectangular table against the wall, with a chair at both ends and a bowl and a spoon in front of one of the chairs. A few animal droppings marred the table and floor in here, and when she peered into the partially open cupboard where he stored food, it was clear that creatures had had free reign of Loki's home while he'd been on Asgard. "They scattered when I came in,"Odin explained. The cooling cabinet, higher off the ground and not as easy to open, fared better, and held milk, a small block of cheese, a yellow fruit whose name Frigga could not recall, and a piece of meat wrapped in thick paper, a bone poking out one end. An empty pan sat on the stove, and she wondered if it had been empty before the animals arrived. The back wall had a small window which was open; Loki had probably opened it while cooking. She went over and closed it.

On the other side of the main room was Loki's bedchamber, holding a bed, dresser with mirror, a desk, a chair, no engravings or inlaid metals or gems anywhere as best Frigga could tell. She thought the blanket on the bed was gray, but it was hard to be certain because everything was covered in dust and bits of stone rubble – most of the far wall had collapsed and the ceiling was sagging. "That was me," Thor had told her. "He slipped out a window." There was no longer any sign of a window on that wall. Above the desk was another window. Hanging on a nail to the right of the window was a calendar, with a coastal scene on top and boxes for each day of the month below. Many of the boxes were nearly black with writing; Frigga took the calendar from the hook and peered closely to read the scrunched up writing that looked a little like Loki's. _"Pulled 18 radish bunches. Sand beans wilting. Pulled weeds. Watered. Fertilized cabbages. Cleared stones. Dug furrows." _She went on to the next box. _"Sand beans lost cause – pulled them. Went to market. Had black tea (good) with Kendra. Gave her radishes. Bought new cheese – "Seldris," white, smells odd. Planted red carrots and black beans. Watered."_ Again she continued. _"Did laundry. White shirt came out stained. Hung others to dry. Pulled weeds. Watered. Garden looks good. Had lunch with Lungrin. Bought knife. Met Elandra. Sharpened knife."_ It went on from there, little innocuous details of his life, seemingly random, though mostly focused on his vegetable garden. It all seemed so mundane. So unlike Loki.

"Here it is," Thor had interrupted; he'd started opening Loki's desk drawers and found a square blue card on which was written Landris Vale, Certified Mind Healer, Clinic Proprietor, followed by an address. Odin then announced they were leaving.

"He does his own laundry, too," she told Thor as they neared the end of the bridge.

Thor looked at her in confusion for a moment, probably having forgotten his earlier comment about cooking in their slow passage down the bridge. "Loki doesn't know how to do laundry. He complains when he has to rinse off his own clothing in a river when we go adventuring."

"Clearly," she said, remembering the stained white shirt. She wondered if he'd washed it with the red one he'd had on when he first got back. "And I'm sure you're an expert," she added, nudging her horse a little closer to Thor's so she could lean over and pat his thigh.

Thor chuckled softly but said nothing.

"I'm going to see him," she said as they drew near the palace.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No. You two just antagonize each other."

He frowned but nodded, and she soon parted ways with him.

/

* * *

/

Kendrith was back to sitting on his bed, knees pulled to his chin and arms wrapped around his legs. Today, his forty-ninth day, he'd chosen the really-darker-green shirt. It was long, more of a tunic, really, and the material was heavier. Untucked, it hung to his upper thighs, and now it was pulled down over the leather of the pants he'd finally given in over and worn once his choices had come down to wearing leather or stinking. He'd left his feet bare, unwilling to so completely cover himself in Loki's clothes while trapped in Loki's prison.

The queen had come to see him after dinner the day before, but he'd been lying down and feigned sleep. Dealing with her wasn't easy. She made him feel guilty and she made him feel angry and he already felt desperate. She made him think about things he didn't want to think about. Things that he didn't have. He knew he couldn't let himself think about those things.

Breakfast had come this morning, and he'd steeled himself for her visit, but it hadn't come. He picked at the food he was given, different from yesterday's breakfast. It wasn't particularly good, but it wasn't particularly bad. It could have used more seasoning, but he figured they didn't waste the seasonings on prisoners. He would have eaten more of it had his stomach not been tied in knots from fear of what was to come. Days of floggings? He had seen a flogging once, on Alfheim, a thief who was a repeat offender. His shirt had been removed and his hands had been chained above his head to a metal post in the center of one of the town squares. The man had received thirty lashes and was a whimpering drooling mess by the time he was unchained and dragged away. He wondered how it was done here, and he raged at the idea that such a thing could be carried out on him for something Loki had done.

On the other hand, some part of him he thought may be slightly twisted thought it would a good thing, for the sole reason that it might be the only time in the next six hundred and forty-eight years that he would get to feel sunshine, or see anything outside of this prison, any people other than the guards, Loki's family, and his sharp-toothed constantly grinning neighbor.

"Six hundred and forty-eight years," he whispered. He still couldn't believe it. He would choose to reduce it to one hundred and forty-eight, of that there was no question. He would make whatever kind of penance they wanted to however many realms they wanted in whatever way they wanted. But even one hundred and forty-eight was far too much, far too long. If he were kept here one hundred and forty-eight _days_ he was afraid he would go mad. He was used to keeping busy. He was used to working outside under the sun. He was used to long walks into town to go the market. Kendra would wonder where he was, and perhaps send someone to check on him, or go herself. They would find a cottage half-destroyed. They would think he was dead, kidnapped, who knew. Perhaps they'd just think he'd snapped and lost his mind and done all that damage himself. One hundred forty-eight years. Loki had already spent more than two here in this cell. Perhaps Loki had begun to go mad. Perhaps it was madness that drove him to have his memories extracted.

"No," he told himself. He could not think that way. Loki did what he did, and Landis and Pardit had determined that he had made the decision with a clear mind. Loki had told him what to do.

He was wondering if it had rained back home, and mentally reviewing his vegetables and the stages of growth they were in, when the queen finally appeared. She strode straight through the wall, and bade him sit when he started to get up to bow.

"How are you today?"

"Fine. Thank you," he quickly tacked on.

"I'm sorry I didn't come see you this morning. We went to Alfheim."

He watched as she pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down to face him. His own legs now dangled over the edge and his posture straightened to match hers. "You found the card, then? You had everything confirmed?"

"We did. I don't understand how Alfheim could allow such a practice to take place. It's appalling."

Loki shifted in discomfort under her gaze. _Is she angry at me now for that? It wasn't _my_ choice._

"We were told that it is possible to undo what was done to you, but it would not be easy. And you must choose it."

"I don't," he said immediately.

She frowned, sighed, and thankfully let the matter drop, though he suspected he hadn't heard the last of it. "I brought you something," she said, reaching into the folds of her embroidered lavender gown and pulling out something that had only partially fit into some hidden pocket. Kendrith had noticed something there but thought little of it.

When she handed it to him though, his eyes lit up. "My calendar." He ran a thumb over the words he'd squeezed into each day's box as it came to a close.

"Yes. I could tell it was important to you, so I thought you'd like to have it."

His face fell. If she knew it was important to him, and she'd wanted him to have it, that meant he wasn't going home anytime soon. _It only covers a year. Will she bring me new ones? What will I write in them? Woke up? Slept? Took a shower? Changed clothes? Ate?_

"I thought perhaps you might have some questions for me. About your family. About Asgard. About your life," she said, settling back into the chair in a manner that suggested she intended to stay for a long time.

Kendrith avoided her eyes, looking carefully at the calendar, skimming over a few entries, making sure he remembered each of the things he'd noted down. She'd asked him once before if he was curious about those letters, the ones Loki had written and he had never read. He'd answered in simple terms: they weren't addressed to him. It wasn't that simple. Of course he'd been curious. He'd once spent an entire day, missing two meals and doing nothing for the garden he'd only just begun working in, doing nothing at all but sitting at his desk and staring at those letters. _Do not look back,_ Loki had written to him in a letter addressed "To you," and left on top of his desk where he would easily find it. Loki had written who-knew-how-many words to his family, but to the person left after his memories were removed, he'd left only those four words. They had to have been important, so important that Loki had not wanted the message diluted by any other words. Kendrith took them as his instruction for life, the cardinal rule of his existence. To _Do not look back_ had not been added _Read the other letters._

"All right," he finally said, thinking of a question that he felt did not violate the rule, and might prove useful to know the answer to. "Who is Heimdall and how did he know I was having dinner?"

"Heimdall controls the bifrost, that grants passage to and from Asgard."

Kendrith nodded; that much he'd guessed, after Thor had called out the name right before they were brought to Asgard. He also knew he didn't like that man, who'd looked at him with such ire. Of course, nearly everyone here looked at him with ire, thanks presumably to whatever horrible things Loki had done.

"He has special sight. He can cast his vision across any of the Nine Realms and see and hear what goes on. He's been looking for you ever since you escaped from prison. But you…" Her eyes briefly widened and she looked away for just a second before continuing. "He found you the night before last, and he told us what he saw. How is your cooking, by the way? You didn't grow up having to cook any meals, only the occasional field cooking."

"Not very good," he admitted. "But it's getting better. I didn't know about seasonings at first, or how long things should be cooked."

She gave a short laugh with a warm smile that conveyed her relief that he'd answered her question. Like a son might answer a mother's question. He vowed not to ever do it again, even as she spoke. "It's good to learn a new skill. Perhaps someday you could cook something for me."

"Yes, in a hundred and forty-eight years, I shall do so, if you like, Your Majesty."

The smile disappeared. She swallowed heavily, and he knew he'd hurt her. He didn't like the way it made him feel, because he thought probably she was just trying to be nice.

"What other questions can I answer for you?" she asked, a smile back in place, though this one was clearly less natural.

"Who is he? And why is he here?" Kendrith asked, inclining his head just a fraction toward the cell with his staring neighbor. The man was not staring now, though, he realized when he peered out of the corner of his eye.

"He can't see in here now; no one can. I've sealed your cell from others' eyes and ears. He…" She angled her head toward the other cell and watched the man for a moment; he was pacing his cell like a caged animal. "His name is Thek Litvith, and he is of Nidavellir. He committed many murders across three realms. And…he desecrated the bodies afterward. It was gruesome. I never learned all the details. I heard the first few and it was enough."

Kendrith listened with growing discomfort. There were other cells here, he knew. Depending on where he was in his own cell, he could see part of the cell next to his neighbor's, and in it were two men he'd caught glimpses of. Unlike Thek Litvith, they had paid him little attention. He wondered what they'd done to end up in such conditions. His neighbor with the sharp teeth had murdered and desecrated bodies. If such a man was his neighbor…who was _he_? "I don't understand. If I…if Loki is like him, why do you keep coming here? Why do you want him back?"

Her mouth fell open; she looked as though she'd just seen something terribly offensive. "He _isn't_ like him. He isn't like him at all. He's my son. _You_ aren't like him." She reached out her right hand toward his cheek, but he leaned back to avoid the touch. "You're my son," she whispered so softly he couldn't hear many of the actual sounds, other than the clear hiss of the "s."

Kendrith felt emotion growing in him, something strange and beautiful and horrible, something opening up that he hadn't realized was there before, something that ached with emptiness. It scared him. _His mother. Not mine. Do not look back._ He clenched his fists at his side and pressed them hard into the bedcovers. "I do not wish to see you again."

She breathed deeply and sat back again, letting her hand fall to her lap. "Loki, whether you remember me or not, I'm your mother. Your memories, or your lack of them, cannot change that. Of course I'm going to come see you."

"You cited the law to me yesterday. Does your law require that I accept visitors?"

The earnest, pleading expression fell away. He thought she seemed surprised, but he wasn't sure. Her face had until now been very expressive, easy for him to read. "It does not," she finally said.

"Then I refuse all visitors henceforth. I will accept only one visit, from the person who tells me I may depart this realm freely and return to rebuild my home on Alfheim that your son destroyed."

The queen's face still betrayed little – at least to him, with little experience in discerning what others might like to hide – but her brow was furrowed. "I will return, but I will ask your permission before entering your cell."

"I have already told you I will accept no visitors save one, for one specific visit."

"The law permits you to refuse visitors," she said in a voice that sounded off somehow. Rough. "But it also permits me to ask to visit."

"Very well. Do as you must. But hear me now: my answer will not change. I do not know you, and I do not wish to know you."

* * *

/

_Thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting, etc._

_Guest 10/1/13: THANK YOU! You're absolutely right. I fixed it. ~ youjustgotlokid 10/1/13: Happy birthday...and happy day-after-your-birthday. ~ jacquelinelittle 10/1/13: Yes, one or more of those options may be on Thor's mind! Frigga prefers other methods._

_So, you're getting this chapter very quickly because I got the one after it written very quickly. In Ch. 12 (possibly "Enigma"), Sif and the Warriors Three appear, and Thor faces up to something he hasn't done yet. In Ch. 13 "A Choice," some things begin to look a little different._


	12. Enigma

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 12: Enigma**

The next day found Thor pacing through his chambers in plain brown leather and blue cloth, his eyes lingering on his desk every time he passed through his study. Unusual for him, he'd wanted to be alone. It was good that he did not desire it often, for anonymity was next to impossible for the gregarious prince and heir to the throne.

He'd shared a private dinner with his parents the night before, when his mother had explained in an unnaturally flat voice that Loki refused to accept her or anyone else as a visitor. Loki had never denied his visitors before. He might not speak to them, as was often the case with himself, but he did not refuse them entry. Loki was not so thoroughly outgoing as Thor, but he had always been communicative, and even while in prison, even on the many occasions he refused to speak, his silence had not been entirely unresponsive. Thor had come to recognize meaning in his sighs, twitches, eye-rolling, even how he positioned himself with respect to Thor. He often did not _understand_ the meaning, but he knew it was there.

He had paused in his study, staring at his desk and the folded single sheet of paper that sat atop it, when he heard a knock at the door. He made his way back through the rooms to the antechamber and opened the door to see Sif.

"Come," she said. She wore a light version of her armor, and a rich black leather cloak over it.

"Where?" Thor asked when she did not elaborate.

"Does it matter? You'll go stir-crazy shut up in here all day."

He sighed and nodded, then turned around to pull a brown leather cloak from a narrow wardrobe by the door. "Lead on, my lady."

Thor pulled the cloak on and the hood over his head when they emerged from the private wing of the palace. It might spare him some of the attention, and the day was overcast and cool, so it did not look out of place. As it turned out, it seemed to have little effect, and many citizens, some well-known to him and some barely recognized, stopped to at least exchange greetings with him. None was so bold as to ask about Loki's escape or return, for which he was grateful.

"How are you?" Sif asked when they entered the royal stables and gained a modicum of privacy.

"You know I brought him back?"

"All of Asgard knows it. Good news flies on the wind. Almost as quickly as bad news."

"I'm not sure which this is anymore," he said, and fell back into his own thoughts. His father had not yet come to a decision about Loki, and was meeting with his advisors about it again later this afternoon. But yesterday evening, after his mother had told him about Loki's refusal, his father had expressly forbidden any form of coercion, whether to force Loki to accept visitors, or to force him to attempt to have his memories returned. Inaction was not in Thor's nature.

They found Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun assisting the servants as they tacked up five horses, and it was only then that Thor truly realized Sif's intent was that they go riding. "How did you know I would agree?" he asked her.

"I know _you_."

"We all know you," Fandral said. "Now let's get out of here. The Varleid Meadow?"

Thor nodded. It was an easy ride, just an hour or so away, a popular picnic spot on weekends and celebration days, but usually quiet otherwise. As they rode, Thor's body fell automatically into the proper posture and he quickly relaxed, letting himself move with the saddle. One could not ride a horse while tense…not well, anyway. It had been a good idea, he realized. Forcing his muscles to relax reduced some of the tension that had been building up inside him.

When they reached the meadow, they let the horses graze and made their way over to an old campground used by youths for whom an hour away from the city could still make for an exciting adventure. A few hollow logs and a couple of large flat stones circled a firepit; there the five friends settled, teasing and jesting as they had for hundreds of years, opening up their packs and passing around the food and drink they'd brought along to share.

It was only perhaps a year ago that Thor had once again begun adventuring with them. Loki still cast a pall over nearly everything he did, whether he'd been thought dead or whether he'd been locked away in the lowest, most secure level of Asgard's prison, and Thor had not wished either to be a burden to his friends or to spoil their enjoyment with his moodiness.

"Loki has had his memories removed," he said out of the blue, interrupting Sif's complaint that Fandral had crushed the strawberries.

"Removed? How?" Hogun asked, as Sif wordlessly set the bag with the crushed strawberries on the ground beside her.

Thor told him everything he knew. About Loki's cottage. About the clinic on Alfheim. About the memory casket. About the letters. "He's destroying Mother. He invoked his legal right to accept no visitors, and he refuses to see her or anyone else. He calls me 'Prince Thor' and he bows and he apologizes. And he does it without the slightest bit of mockery. He says he is not Loki, that we should call him 'Kendrith.' '_Kendrith_.' What manner of name is this, anyway? It sounds Ljosalf. Why would he do this? How is this better? I know he hates being imprisoned, of course he does. Who wouldn't? But a hundred and fifty years are nothing. Even six hundred and fifty would be bearable, it isn't as though he's abandoned there, and it's only his stupid pride that won't allow him to make amends and shorten his confinement anyway. So why would he do this? What was so terrible about his life that he doesn't wish to remember it anymore? I remember good times. Centuries of them. Do you not as well?" he asked his friends, glancing at each one but not allowing time for answers. "Adventures across Asgard and across the realms. Contests and jests and games. Mead and women and fights and-"

"Loki doesn't drink," Hogun put in.

"_I _drank enough for the both of us. That makes no difference. We had feasts and galas and hunts, and…and he was a Prince of Asgard. He had everything he wanted. If he didn't have it, he had only to ask for it, or to purchase it. And he had friends and horses and-"

"You were his best friend, Thor," Sif said.

"I- I know that. And he was mine. We were inseparable as children. He was my other half. And we-"

"There were bad times, too," Fandral interrupted, his voice far more subdued that its usual boisterous tone.

"What do you- Of course there were bad times. Whose life is made solely of good times? What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing, nothing, my friend," Fandral said, one hand out as though to calm ruffled feathers. "Just that…perhaps…you remember things somewhat differently from Loki. Some of the bad times were very bad."

Thor narrowed his eyes in confusion, then he noticed Volstagg avert his gaze and he understood. "You speak of Baldur? You call this 'bad times'?"

"Thor," Volstagg cautioned, but Thor was not in a mood for listening, or for caution.

"Baldur's death was over a thousand years ago. You would lay this at his feet now? After everything he went through?"

"None of us would," Volstagg said, the only one of Thor's four friends who had really known Baldur, having been one of his trainers at the time. "That is long past. But there are other things. Do you remember the terrible fight you two got into on Alfheim? The time you nearly killed him when we were helping you learn how to control Mjolnir? The hunts he went on only because you insisted? All the times he went with us to taverns and drank water? I can tell you _that_ is not much fun, now that I have my little ones and don't indulge as I used to. Shush, you," he said, turning to Sif.

"I said nothing," Sif said, wide-eyed and innocent. Thor wasn't paying enough attention to notice what she'd said or done, nor did he care.

"So you think Loki chose to have his memories torn from his mind because we got into a few fights? Because he stayed sober while we drank? I miss my brother and I'm fighting with you all now! Perhaps I should let those so-called healers take their cleavers to my head as well and hack all my memories away!"

Sif frowned and looked away; the Warriors Three each avoided his gaze as well.

Thor sighed and pushed himself up from the log he'd been sitting on. He ran a hand from his forehead down through the blond hair he'd let grow long, wrapping a fist around it at the base of his skull and pulling until it hurt. He let it go and looked down at his dearest companions. "Forgive me, my friends. I know you mean well. Please trust that I do as well. And…there are things you don't know, things between my family that I can't divulge, revelations that pained Loki, and all of us. But despite those things, despite whatever arguments and fights and frustrations and…and even horrors that may have happened in the past, I still can't believe any of it would be enough to make him do this."

Sif stood then, too, and placed a hand lightly on his elbow. "There's nothing to forgive. We all understand. Perhaps…it's possible that he finally began to feel guilty over the devastation he brought to Jotunheim and Midgard."

Thor thought back to his last visit with Loki, before his escape. He'd caught Loki watching once when he'd thought Thor wasn't looking, but otherwise, his brother had been in one of his silent moods and had not responded at all to Thor's attempts to tell him about the meeting he'd just attended with the trade advisor. _"I grow weary, Thor, leave me be,"_ he had said, to which Thor had nodded. _"I understand,"_ he'd answered with as much humor as he could muster. _"This tale puts me to sleep as well."_ He'd hoped it might earn him a laugh, but these days Loki only ever laughed to mock.

"If he was ever burdened by guilt over either one I never saw it. When I told him the Jotuns refused to talk peace with Father, he asked if we would like him to finish what he started. I don't think he did this out of guilt."

"Did he give any hint of his reasoning in his letter to you?" Volstagg asked.

Thor glanced upwards and released a frustrated breath. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Sif said, taking a seat with the others again.

He frowned. He didn't want to admit this. "I haven't read it yet."

Volstagg, Sif, and Fandral all spoke at once, Hogun adding a second after, "You must read his letter."

Thor returned to his log. "I have been avoiding it. I... Between us…I am afraid to read it."

"Why?" Sif asked softly.

"You didn't hear what he wrote to Father. It was cruel. Hateful. He spared Mother, but I know his letter to me will be full of hatred. And if we can't force him to take his memories back, whatever vile words dripped from his pen…they will be the last words my little brother ever said to me." He realized the tears were coming only after they were already there, and through his blurry vision Volstagg, his oldest friend of these dear four, was pulling him up and into a bear hug. Thor allowed it for a moment, allowed himself to be comforted by it, but his pride was still intact and it was rare for him to show this type of emotion in front of his friends. He squeezed Volstagg's arms and the older man stepped back. Other hands touched his shoulders and arms; Sif flicked a thumb against his cheek to wipe away a tear so quickly he wasn't sure the others would have even realized what she'd done.

"Perhaps whatever he wrote won't be as bad as what you're imagining," Fandral suggested.

"What were his other last words? Before he escaped from prison?" Volstagg asked.

"'I grow weary. Leave me be.'"

"Hmmm. Not helpful. And his last words before that?" Fandral asked.

Thor remembered them with only a little sifting of his memories, for he clung to the few words Loki spoke to him, as though each trickle may presage a flood. "'Do something useful for once and tell the cooks that the roast is overcooked. They'll probably listen to you.'"

Sif gave a short laugh. "_That_ sounds like Loki."

Thor could almost muster a laugh with her, but not quite. Sif's words were colored, as they often were, by her personal dislike of Loki.

"Read the letter, Thor," Volstagg urged. "It may hold the answers you seek. And if it is purely vile, then remember his more eloquent words about the roast."

"Loki knows how to speak even vitriol eloquently," Thor said.

"Well, he didn't earn the nickname 'Silvertongue' for nothing," Fandral said.

Thor nodded. How many times he'd wished he had Loki's gift with words. Thor was not shy about speaking, whether before friends or before great crowds, but his speech tended to be plain and direct, lacking Loki's subtleties and flourishes and cleverness. Loki's speech, of course, could be infuriating, when one wanted only a simple answer and one instead got subtleties and flourishes and cleverness. What he wouldn't give to hear that silver tongue work its magic again now.

/

* * *

/

The five friends soon readied themselves to return, for Thor was to join his father and his advisors for their next meeting about Loki. He went to nearly all such meetings now, and while he took them far more seriously than he ever had before his banishment, many of them still challenged his ability to maintain his concentration. With this one he knew he might face the other shortcoming he still struggled with – his temper. His father's advisors, good men all, were just that – advisors – but they sometimes thought themselves something more. But this was not the natural environment, or agriculture, or trade, or diplomacy, or any of the other areas for which an advisor was designated. This was his brother. The very idea that anyone other than he and his family should even have the right to speak on the issue was an affront.

It was also pointless. _A solution already exists, right here, within reach. Loki is here. The casket is here. Yet I can do nothing._

His frustration was already building as – his closest friends at his side at his insistence – he entered the throne room, where the meeting was already underway. Odin did not normally hold such meetings here, seated on his throne atop the dais. Thor wondered if he had done it deliberately, to send a reminder that while the advisors' opinions would be heard, Odin All-Father was king and held the final authority.

"Prince Thor, you said earlier that the prisoner _sounded_ like Loki. Does that not mean that some part of Loki remains?" the trade advisor asked.

Thor stepped forward, from where he had lingered at the back of the crowd of some twenty advisors, nearly all of those holding the top posts. Even Eir was there, as First Healer, which was unusual. "He sounded like Loki because he used two hundred large words to say what two small ones could have said just as well. And he insulted me."

"Insulted you? What did he say?" the natural environment advisor asked.

"He…ridiculed the fact that Mjolnir is so named, and asked if I had named my nails as well." He heard snickering and turned an angry eye to Fandral, whose laughter quickly ceased; smiles also disappeared from Volstagg's and even Hogun's faces, while Sif rolled her eyes. Thor relaxed. His friends meant no offense. Had all six of them, Loki included, been together, they would have all teased him mercilessly after such a comment, and he would have pretended to be insulted then laughed right along with them.

"Loki always did have a sharp wit," Volstagg said.

"A clever sense of humor and bouts of verbosity are not unique to Loki. Nor are they against Asgardian law," the law advisor said.

"We must take seriously the threat that this is an elaborate hoax," diplomatic advisor and Odin's longtime friend Bragi said over several murmurs of agreement.

"He is not faking. This is no hoax," Thor asserted.

First Einherjar Hergils, who'd thus far remained silent, stepped forward. "With respect, my prince, how can you know that for certain? He is no stranger to deceit and treachery. And his motivation is strong. If we determine that he is in all but physical body not Prince Loki and should be pardoned, he will bear no guilt whatsoever. If he then reveals that everything was staged with this mind healer, that it was all a lie, we will have no recourse against him, and he will remain free after nearly obliterating one of the Nine Realms and attempting to forcibly claim a throne for himself on another. We cannot ignore the gravity of this situation."

"You mean if the All-Father thus determines," Thor corrected with a hard stare.

"Of course," Hergils said, bowing to Odin on his throne and pressing his fist to his chest. "I did not mean to suggest otherwise."

"Thor," Odin said, and did not continue until Thor broke his stare at the unflinching Hergils and looked up at his father. Thor caught the warning in his narrowed eye for what it was and gave a small nod of acknowledgement. "Tell us your impressions of our visit to the cottage, and to the healers Landis and Pardit."

Thor took a deep breath and began his tale again, and the discussion of Loki's fate – of Loki's very existence – went on past dinner.

He accepted his friends' invitation to join them for a late dinner and drinks at a tavern, on the condition they not discuss Loki, to which they readily agreed. His brother was a sensitive subject among them already – while Volstagg and Fandral were more understanding, things had long been tense between Sif and Loki and recent events had only worsened them, and Hogun, who already did not trust easily, would likely never trust Loki again. Not that Loki deserved anyone's trust, really. Still, Thor knew his friends took care with what they said about Loki in his presence, and he knew only Volstagg and Fandral had visited him during his imprisonment.

Instead, they discussed the horse Sif was planning on purchasing, the latest woman Fandral was interested in, and the mess Volstagg's youngest had managed to make after getting his hands on a block of butter. As much as they might tease him, it was in fact Volstagg who left first, and Sif who walked with Thor all the way back to his chambers just as she'd walked him away from them earlier in the day.

"Thor…you know what you need to do," she said as they stood at his door.

He nodded. Though they'd kept their word and not mentioned Loki all night, he knew exactly what she meant.

"I can stay with you, if you want."

"Thank you, Sif," he said, taking one of her hands in his. "I treasure your friendship. But I must do this on my own."

She nodded and squeezed his hand. "You know where to find me," she said, then pulled away and slipped past him.

Thor watched her go, part of him wanting to follow her, to ask her to stay up talking with him. He knew she would agree. But he'd avoided the sheet of paper on his desk long enough.

He had fought Dark Elves, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, beasts of land, air, and sea, the Destroyer, the Chitauri, and so many more, and faced them without fear.

He could face a letter from his brother.

* * *

/

_Chapter 13 "A Choice" at last contains Thor's letter, accounting now for four of the five sheets of paper Loki wrote on in Chapter 1 "On This Page."_

_Thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting, following... I have so enjoyed the split reaction and all your thoughts regarding in particular Frigga and Loki/Kendrith (tabula rasa Loki, as one reader has called him).  
_

_One additional note: I forget sometimes that not everyone necessarily knows who Baldur is. Baldur (or Balder or Baldr) was, in Norse mythology, Thor's half-brother, beloved among the Aesir. Loki (who is neither Thor's nor Baldur's brother - that's a Marvel thing) murders him, in a story that includes pretty severe punishment for Loki. I have my own take on this that I use, but I do include Baldur in this universe, though he died a very long time ago. Baldur and Baldur's death is addressed in some of my other stories, but not particularly in this one._


	13. A Choice

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 13: A Choice**

Thor pulled out the dark brown leather chair, settled himself at his desk, and stared at the letter before him. "For Thor," it read on the outside, in lettering Loki had first learned to make while sitting right next to him. A page full of words like for his mother, a handful of them like for his father – Thor did not know what to expect. But he knew they would not be kind.

He took the paper, unfolded it from its thirds, smoothed it, lined it up perfectly on the desk with eyes deliberately unfocused. Without further excuse for delay, he took a deep breath, released it slowly, and fixed his eyes on the letter before him. Many words, not few, and in small handwriting to fit them all in. _Let us hear your final eloquent words against me, Brother._ He began to read.

_Thor,_

_First, if you do not yet know why I did not better anticipate the blow from your hammer, ask Mother to read her letter, and ask her what it says. I've no desire to repeat myself to you yet again. (You think this magic, that I have predicted the future? No, dear brother of mine, this is centuries of observation of you introducing yourself by swinging Mjolnir.)_

Thor read at first with confusion, before he realized Loki was referring to his apprehending "Kendrith," that he had used Mjolnir against him. "It is not magic. You escaped from prison and fled with the blood of three guards on your hands. What else did you expect?"

_You have asked? No? Do it now._

Thor frowned. He could _hear_ Loki's voice chiding him, taunting him.

_Second, the words I write here are for your eyes and ears alone. Tempted though you may be to share them – particularly in your blind loyalty to the All-Father – you must not, not even when he demands it of you. Do you remember when we were yet young, barely men, and stood on the bifrost preparing to ask Heimdall what he knew of your stolen hammer? Do you remember how great your humiliation was, and how I taunted you without mercy? Do you remember what you said to me on the bridge, right before we continued on to the observatory? You said that what is said between brothers must remain separate from what is said before others. This remains true even today, does it not? Even if only between those who once thought themselves brothers. You will have to remember for the both of us now. You have spoken to Mother, haven't you? Go now, else the rest of what I have to say will be gibberish._

Thor remembered. He didn't remember those words, but he remembered his youthful fear that Loki would tell Heimdall exactly _how_ he'd lost Mjolnir. But Loki had never told a soul. "That I knew of," Thor couldn't resist saying, as though Loki were standing there with him in his study. "Now enough with your games."

_You see, I write this letter for one reason and one reason only: to offer you a choice._

At this Thor paused. So it was a game indeed. With Loki it was almost always a game, and Thor suspected he'd not always known they'd been playing.

_The choice is yours alone. No one will know what you decide, because no one will know the choice exists in the first place. Not even me. (This is your last chance. Ask Mother about her letter now.)_

Thor rolled his eyes. "She's already read us her letter, Loki. Part of it anyway. Enough, I presume. Now can we get on with it?" Under other circumstances, he thought he might be laughing right now.

_Here is your choice, Thor. Do you want Loki back? (And if you wonder, yes, it is exceedingly strange to think of myself in the third person. That is the "he/she/it/they" form, in case you weren't paying attention during that lesson.)_

"What do you mean by this?" he asked the letter, the empty room, his absent brother, shaking his head as his eyes flew over Loki's sudden need to provide him with an impromptu irrelevant grammar lesson.

_But I digress. Do you want Loki back? The man who exists now is not Loki and will never be Loki. Do not delude yourself into thinking otherwise. He wants to be your brother no more than I (just how quickly did you introduce him to Mjolnir?) and he has neither the deceivingly happy childhood memories nor the hatred to tie him to you. If you decide you want him back, be warned: nothing will have changed. If the need and opportunity arise – perhaps simply the opportunity – I will kill you and take the throne. I will never submit to punishment, and I will never lower myself to apologize to either mortals or monsters, nor will I ever assist in rebuilding their miserable realms. And I will never call you "brother," except when I think it will cause you pain, Brother._

_Yet I know full well how desperately you cling to the notion that you can change all that if you simply smile widely enough – or throw Mjolnir hard enough._

Thor let his eyes flutter closed for a moment, then he quickly reread the last section. "You jest, yet with every word you seek to wound me," he said, wondering yet again how they had gone from brothers and best friends to this.

_Your choice, then. Let me go to live my own life, free from your shadow, while you live in peace, free from the fear of what I will do next, what further shame I will bring to the throne that was always meant only for you. Or, bring me back, torment me a while longer with your deluge of heartfelt sentiment in hopes I will "change," and know that you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, wondering when and where I will strike next._

"What has so warped your thoughts, Brother? Why do you again speak of shadows? Why is a family's love a torment to you?"

_If you are ready to be free of me forever, to end the All-Father's shame and not prolong Mother's pain, then you need do nothing more than say goodbye._

_If, however, you prefer to suffer, then you must undertake something of a quest. The quest itself is not so difficult, not for you, but you must do it alone, and you must tell no one of your true intent. If this is your choice, here are the steps you must follow…_

Seven steps were laid out below; Thor's eyes skimmed them but did not absorb any meaning from them. The seven steps were irrelevant. The real first step was the choice.

Say goodbye. Leave Loki in the past, existing only in memory. Try to forget everything that Loki had done since his botched coronation and remember only the good times. Quiet thinker, smooth charmer, haughty prince, laughing trickster, teasing brother. Let "Kendrith" take Loki's body and empty mind back to Alfheim to grow cabbages, if Odin so permitted, or let him serve out his sentence alone and forgotten in the bowels of Asgard.

Undertake a quest to bring Loki back. "Suffer." "Live in fear." Tolerate however much venom Loki wished to spew at him, for however long, knowing the two may never make amends, may remain enemies forever. Rid Loki of the usurper Kendrith and bring his brother back. Look into eyes he knew as well as his own and see _Loki_ there looking back at him, probably in hatred.

In the end, it was never a choice at all. Not if Loki could remind him of his stolen hammer and one of their earliest great adventures. Not if he could still draw on that teasing sarcasm Thor knew so well, as though nothing had ever changed. Not if he were offering Thor a chance to _prove_ through a quest that he still considered Loki his brother. For all those things, he could ignore the spiteful barbs, the sense that they were now sworn enemies instead of greatest allies. He heard Loki's voice in every word of this letter, and he thought suddenly that he hated Kendrith, who had stolen Loki's body and Loki's voice.

The decision was made.

Thor looked back at the steps his brother had listed. Loki had helpfully numbered them, but missed the opportunity to impugn his ability to count, Thor thought with a smile. He read step one, three times although it was not long or complicated. It was late, but he could accomplish it tonight. He read the second step and his eyebrows went up in surprise. He could begin that one tonight, but completing it would require more time. He folded the letter back as it had been and locked it away inside the little storage compartment on the side of the desktop that only his hand could open or close.

/

* * *

/

Thor sprinted up one flight of stairs to reach his parents' floor, but stopped the Einherjar who moved to open the doors to their chambers for him. "I don't wish to disturb them," he said. "Do you know what became of my brother's belongings? The things that were in the green cloth bag that was brought up here?"

"I do, Prince Thor. The All-Father ordered the bag and its contents returned to him this morning."

Surprised again, Thor nodded, thanked the guard, and hurried down the stairs and through underground passageways and down more stairs to Asgard's secure prison.

/

* * *

/

Kendrith paced in his cell. It was late; dinner had come and gone – he hadn't been able to eat a bite of it – and the lights had already been dimmed for night. His neighbor Thek had climbed into bed the instant the lights went out as usual, but Kendrith was too upset to feel any relief at not having the man's eyes on him any longer. He had gone too far with the queen. He'd spent the entire day nervous and jittery, hoping she would come so he could apologize, and hoping she wouldn't come so he wouldn't have to hear that name anymore, or see those looks of pleading and pain on her face. He _needed_ her and the king if he hoped to be freed, and he'd reacted instinctively to protect himself and obey the one rule he'd been given…but he'd gone too far. Perhaps, he thought, he would have the next hundred and forty-eight years to contemplate every mistake he'd made since being brought to Asgard. They were piling up rapidly. "_Loki paid me to pretend to be him. Even changed my appearance to make me look exactly like him." Idiot._

The entire day had gone by like a bucket filling from a dripping faucet – slow but inexorable – and the queen had done as he'd demanded and not come. Nor had anyone else, save one of the guards, who'd slid his bag through the glass and onto the narrow white ledge. He'd immediately gone to the back and changed, and at least now he could dress comfortably in his own clothes.

He sat now in his chair at the small combination desk and cabinet in the corner, poring over his calendar. After confirming that he remembered every single entry, he lifted the pen he found in the desk and made a new entry for his fiftieth day. _Guard brought bag. Changed clothes._ The previous day he'd noted the food he'd been served. Today he'd picked at breakfast and eaten nothing since. He studied the picture of the cliffs and coastline on the top portion of the calendar page. He'd asked Kendra about it, thought perhaps he might like to go there and see it for himself someday. He bent forward until his forehead rested on the desk, feeling as though the cell were closing in on him.

He jerked upright and was on his feet in an instant – faster than he knew he was capable of – at the sudden sound of footsteps behind him. It was the prince, already standing inside his cell. He didn't have his hammer with him. The two just stared at each other for a moment, Kendrith nervous about why he'd come. Then his chest filled with a rush of sweet air. He'd told the queen he would accept only one visitor… "Am I to be freed?"

His hope was just as quickly crushed. "No. Father hasn't yet ruled on the matter. You have made it difficult to trust you, Loki. Or…Kendrith."

"Then why are you here? I told the queen that I am refusing visitors. You…you have no…but…I suppose…" _Perhaps he will be willing to help you. He pardoned you once already. Don't force him away!_

"I…to be honest, I'd forgotten about that already. I won't stay long. And…I won't come again. Not to you."

"All right," Kendrith said quietly, holding himself still and trying not to react to Thor's strange words and demeanor. He seemed hesitant, perhaps even nervous, and he had not behaved that way during their other encounters.

"How are you? Do you not miss receiving visitors? When you were here before, I came several times a week, and Mother came every day. Others came as well."

Kendrith thought for a moment before speaking, trying to choose his words carefully. "I believed it was better this way. I know she means well, but she comes here to see her son…and I'm not him." He wasn't sure how "well" Frigga truly meant, but he knew speaking ill of the prince's mother wouldn't help matters.

"You wish to shed your past life?"

"Yes, that's it exactly. I can't live my own life if I'm trapped in his."

"His was not so terrible. And yours…growing vegetables is what you want from this new life?"

Thor's opinion was not difficult to discern; the "correct" answer was clear. But Kendrith found himself unable to respond, either with the correct or the incorrect answer.

"I understand your memory casket has been returned to you, along with this clothing," Thor said, gesturing toward Kendrith.

"Yes. It has."

Thor turned and took a few steps deeper into the room, looking around, Kendrith presumed, at the furniture. "I would like to take it with me, as a remembrance of my brother."

Kendrith's lips parted, but again he didn't know how to answer. He had so little, and Thor wished to take this from him? But Thor was the prince, the heir to Asgard's throne. If he wanted something, perhaps it could not be refused. He would have to tread lightly. "I would prefer to keep it, if I may."

Thor turned back again then, and Kendrith felt the other man's eyes burning into his. "It's part of your past, Kendrith. You should let it go."

Kendrith looked away then, unable to bear the intensity of the gaze any longer. _Do not look back._ Thor was right. He should hold no emotional attachment to the casket. It was a _casket_, after all. Nothing of _him_ was held inside, only of Loki. Keeping it, and the _desire_ to keep it, was a fundamental violation of the one rule he was to follow. And as for the legal ramifications, should it ever be an issue again now that he had used it to claim citizenship on Alfheim, he could always solicit Landis's and Pardit's testimony, and explain that the casket had been confiscated on Asgard. _This is for the best,_ he thought with a nod to himself, and perhaps to Thor as well.

He opened the top cabinet drawer and carefully extricated the darkened silver box that barely fit. "You may take it," he said, holding it out to Thor.

Thor reached for it, but Kendrith did not immediately let go; Thor lifted questioning eyes to him.

"In return, may I ask for your consideration in my request to be released?" he asked, careful to avoid tacking on the "Prince Thor" that would seem to convey additional respect but he knew would only make him angry.

Thor looked back down at the box and hesitated for an uncomfortably long time. "You may," he said with a nod, still looking at the box that held the casket.

Kendrith let go and Thor turned and walked out of the cell, quickly disappearing down the corridor; Kendrith stared after him for a long time, wondering what had just happened.

/

* * *

/

Thor made his way back up stairs and through an underground passage and eventually into the deserted main palace kitchen where he began gathering supplies. He'd felt guilty lying to Loki, but it was no worse than any lie Loki himself had ever told, and it was at Loki's own instruction he'd told it. Doubt crept up inside him, for Loki hadn't exactly instructed him to let him, or Kendrith, think that he was going to advocate for him with Father. _It was in the spirit of Loki's instructions,_ he told himself, and brushed the doubt away.

The moment of hatred he'd felt toward Kendrith earlier had fully disappeared inside that cell, and that too assuaged his guilt. He couldn't look at that tentative man, so clearly unhappy with this supposedly wonderful new life, and hate him. He'd been stuck with what Loki left him – a hollow shell and a three-room cottage with a vegetable garden. He felt sorry for Kendrith. He would do this for Kendrith as well.

Hefting a sturdy burlap sack into which he slipped the silver box that he'd secreted away from the prison by clasping his hands behind his back underneath his cape, Thor returned to his chambers for the night, hoping he would be able to sleep. He would begin Step Two tomorrow morning.

/

* * *

/

_1. Retrieve my memory casket. If it is in my successor's possession, tell him it is part of his past, and he should therefore let it go. He will not protest. Tell no one else you have taken it._

* * *

/

_Hmmmm... ;-) I would love to hear your reactions!_

_So here I experimented with another way of presenting the letter. It was written in a conversational, interactive tone, so I wanted Thor to be able to "converse" and "interact" with it. I hope it still read relatively smoothly and not too disjointed. I originally wrote the letter by hand, like a real letter, so Thor's reactions were added later. _

_Ch. 14 is titled "Eir," and is mostly from Eir's POV. Eir is a goddess and physician in North mythology, but the myths don't provide any detail about her. I have no idea if she's used in the Marvel Universe at all. I took the name and "job title" from the myths and created my own character around her, and she's one I'm rather fond of. I've been known to call her "the calm in Loki's storm," because she knows him really well but without all the sort of emotional hangups that come with family. She shows up to some extent or other in pretty much all my stories. Ch. 14 marks Kendrith's fourth day of captivity, and it's already taking a toll._

_Oh, and why did you get this chapter so quickly? I wrote the next one quickly, since I was stuck at an airport waiting for a 4.5-hour delayed flight. Nothing to do but write. (_Beneath_ readers, yes, I wrote for it too, of course, but its chapters are longer, and it requires more research.)_


	14. Eir

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 14: Eir**

Morning came. Day fifty-one. Kendrith rose. He took a fresh shirt from his bag – he refused to unpack and put them away – and a pair of Loki's pants. His own pants – he'd only managed to throw one pair in the bag – had been picked up yesterday evening to be laundered, and he'd been told they would be returned today. The leather pants may not have been something he would have chosen on Alfheim, but his only complaint about them now was that they were Loki's. They were very comfortable and fit well…of course that was because they were Loki's.

He took the clean clothes back to his little hidden bathroom, showered, changed, tried his best to steel himself for his fourth day of imprisonment. Sitting anxiously on his bed, he waited for breakfast to be delivered. When it arrived, he took the tray from the ledge and set it on the small round table, then settled into the chair to eat in full view of every guard who walked past and the three other prisoners whose locations permitted it. He had learned to angle the chair so that his back was to the other prisoners, at least. The guards could still see him when they went along the side of his corner cell.

There was nothing to distinguish this day from the previous except that he no longer expected the queen to show up and try to insinuate herself into his life. But then she did.

"Good morning," she said from behind him, startling him. He'd finished eating, managing to eat about half of his breakfast today, but hadn't moved from his chair.

He slowly pushed his chair back, stood, turned, and bowed. "Good morning."

"May I visit you today?"

Kendrith remained silent for a long time, his heart hammering in his chest. "Do you come to tell me I'm free?"

She looked down toward the floor for a moment, and he knew the answer before she answered in the negative. "Your father and his advisors are meeting again this afternoon. They find it difficult to trust you."

"I see." Thor had told him the same last night. Then he had an idea. "Perhaps they don't trust me because they don't know me. Perhaps I could speak to them."

"I don't think that would help. But I'll tell Odin that you offered."

"What do you think he'll decide? Why is it taking so long?"

"I haven't attended the assemblies. I don't know. I don't like hearing you discussed like that."

"Like what?"

"Like…like a criminal. Instead of like my son."

"If it were your choice, what would you decide?"

Her eyes fixed on his so firmly it was almost a physical grip, and he felt like he could not look away if he wanted to. But she didn't answer. And that was answer enough.

"Well, I suppose there's no point in my asking for your consideration with a helpful word in the king's ear."

"Loki, I-"

"Please go."

"Please try-"

"_Please go,_" he said in a raised voice that he hoped fell shy of a shout. He was becoming emotional, and he wasn't very good at controlling it when that happened.

"All right," she said as soon as he spoke. "But Loki…I just…I love you. I'm going," she added hurriedly when he opened his mouth to shout. "I'm going…I'm going," she repeated as she rushed down the corridor and out of view.

Kendrith stood there trembling, alone. He couldn't stand being in her presence, but he needed her. He _knew_ this. He needed her. _Why can't you ever say the right thing? Why can't you just convince her? All you do is make her hate you!_ He began to laugh, softly at first, then growing into something loud and disturbing, even to him. Threk was staring at him, and Kendrith didn't know how exactly Threk had desecrated bodies, but he'd begun to imagine that he'd eaten them. He'd begun to imagine that Threk wanted to eat _him._

"Stop staring at me!" he screamed at his neighbor.

Threk's lips twisted into a smile; he nodded. He still stared.

Kendrith grabbed the tray with its half-eaten plate of food and empty glass and tossed it against the glass wall. The glass shimmered but remained fully solid. He grabbed the lid to the tray and threw it even harder. He grabbed the chair and threw it. He grabbed the little table by a leg and slammed it again and again into the glass, reveling in the reverberations that shot up his arms and into his shoulders and back. He quickly dropped it when a guard appeared in front of him. He looked down at the mess his breakfast had made, then at his hands, which were shaking uncontrollably. He realized they had gone numb.

"I said, what do you think you're doing? I hope you don't think I'm going in there to clean that up."

Kendrith looked up again. He hadn't heard the guard speak before. He looked back at his trembling hands. He had to do better. He wouldn't survive in here. "The queen," he said in a shaky voice.

"She just left."

"I know. I…I spoke poorly. Please will you ask her back?"

The guard let out a heavy breath, presumably to let him know how he felt about this request, but apparently he was still considered the queen's son, a prince even, perhaps, and the guard turned to go.

"No, wait!"

The guard froze, his back still to Kendrith's cell.

"I…I can't. I can't see her. Will you just…will you perhaps…perhaps you could apologize-"

The guard came back to stand before him and his face was red with anger. "Be warned. If you do this again, I will not come when you call. You are in a cell. This is a prison. You are a prisoner. I make sure you don't hurt yourself. I bring you your meals and take away your trays and your dirty laundry, and I return your clean clothing. I make sure you don't escape. Again. That is all. I'm not your messenger boy. I'm not your servant. Those men you sent to the Healing Room? They were my friends. Rindall still can't return to work. Do you know what I'll do for you? I'll get you a bucket and a mop."

Kendrith listened, growing more upset again with every word, and nearly losing it at the end. "I'm sorry. I swear I'm sorry. I don't remember it. Did they tell you? Did they tell you I don't have any memories?"

"Do you think I care?"

Kendrith stumbled backward, deeper into the cell. The guard _hated_ him. Hated him enough to kill him, probably, if he thought he could get away with it. And there was Threk, partially visible to the left of the guard, staring, licking his lips now. Or was he? Kendrith screwed his eyes shut and wondered if he'd imagined it. His chest was hurting; his hands, now tingling, pressed against it. He was sucking in air as though there weren't enough of it in the cell. The walls were pressing in on him. His eyes began to dart around the room, searching desperately for a door that wasn't there.

"Do you need a healer?"

The voice sounded like a whisper, slipping into his ear and wriggling around in his head.

"Do you need a healer?!"

Kendrith looked up. The guard's face was still red, still angry. Kendrith was afraid of him and took a few further steps back. "I…a healer…yes. Yes, please, I need a healer. Please."

The guard shot him a frown that screamed murder then turned and walked away.

Kendrith dug his fingernails into his palms and disappeared into the bathroom.

/

* * *

/

Eir hurried through the labyrinth of corridors and stairways leading to the area where Loki was kept. Prisoners were brought here blindfolded, with the way made deliberately difficult so that in the rare case of prisoner escape from this lowest level, simply getting from cell to open ground was no simple task.

She had been planning on visiting Loki today anyway, to resume her weekly examinations. The message that Loki had thrown a fit and then gone into some kind of hysterical state had simply moved the appointment up on her schedule, and quickened the steps of her approach to a near run. She reached the deepest level of the prison and waited outside Loki's cell only as long as it took for the guards to open it to her. It was empty, and Loki had no ability to use magic in here, which meant he was in the bathing chamber. She looked down and realized she was standing in scrambled eggs and some kind of red jam.

"He was acting crazy," the guard said, making Eir jump. She hadn't realized he'd followed her in.

"I'll see what's wrong. You may wait outside."

"With respect, he could be dangerous."

"With respect, I'm not worried. I can also be dangerous, if I need to be. Wait outside. And seal us off. I want privacy."

The guard hesitated only a moment longer, then left, and the glass darkened a moment later. Eir was a woman of no more than average physical strength, healthy but not young, most often clad in simple beige robes that made her appear almost fragile. But she had been First Healer of Asgard for as long as most could remember, and no one who knew her would call her fragile.

"Loki, when you're ready, please come on out. The guard said you asked for a healer, and I've come." She knew he didn't remember her, not from before a few days ago, anyway, from what the queen had told her, and from the assemblies when the king and the prince had spoken, and she herself had testified that she was 100% positive that the prisoner was Loki Odinson – physically, at least.

Loki stepped quietly through the wall, staring at his feet; Eir was certain he was embarrassed about the outburst he'd had earlier. Then he looked, and the embarrassment gave way to nervousness.

"You recognize me? From when you first arrived here?"

He nodded quickly. "You fixed my ribs. I'm sorry I was rude. I was just…I guess I was scared."

"I don't doubt it. We didn't realize then that you didn't remember us. It must have all been quite a shock. And I'm sorry I made you sleep. It was the safest way I knew to quickly stop you."

"Sleep? What…what are you talking about?"

"When you were choking Prince Thor with your chain. I forced you to fall asleep. It didn't hurt you…but still, I dislike doing such things. It doesn't exactly fall under the rubric of healing."

"Protecting is not so different from healing. I'm glad you did it. I didn't mean to…to do what I did. Sometimes I do things like that. No, I mean, not…not like _that_. Just…without thinking first. Anyway, I'm glad you told me. I couldn't figure out why my sense of time was so off that first day here. They brought breakfast but I thought I must have slept all morning and it should be lunch time."

"Ah. Yes, you only slept for about an hour. And now that that's settled…can you tell me what's wrong? What caused all this?" She waved a hand out toward the mess at the front of the cell.

Loki's eyes followed where her hand pointed, but Eir kept her eyes on him, and saw the signs of panic beginning in him.

"I don't know…I just need…I need what Pardit gave me. Tinna compound extract, I think that's what she called it. In a small metal container. I drink it. Please, can-"

"I don't stock that, Prince Loki, I'm sorry."

Kendrith squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth. "Don't call me that! It's not my name."

"All right," Eir agreed readily. He appeared to be on the verge of a panic attack, and now was not the time to get into a disagreement over his name. Besides, he was still her prince, and she supposed she could address him however he wished. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Kendrith. My name is Kendrith," he said, panting for air.

"All right, Kendrith. Let me explain. I'm familiar with Tinna extract. But I don't approve of its use. It makes those who ingest it pliable, open to suggestion. It's too easily abused. How often was it given to you on Alfheim?" Eir kept her voice calm and even, but the mention of Tinna extract concerned her.

"I don't know. But I need it. I need…I need something, just…something…"

"Come here. Sit on the bed. There you go," she said as she led him over to the bed. "Now look up at me. Open up your chest. Breathe. Look at me. Deep breath in." She breathed in with him, watching as his chest stuttered but allowed his lungs to fill. "Now deep breath out." She repeated the process several times, keeping her eyes on him, taking his wrist in her hand to track his pulse, until his chest rose and fell smoothly, his pulse slowed down, and the muscles around his eyes relaxed. "There, is that better?"

He took another deep breath, this time without her, then nodded.

"Good. Not quite as pleasant as Tinna extract, I suppose, but almost as effective, with none of the side effects. Do you have any trouble retrieving new memories? Experiences from after the procedure on Alfheim?"

"None. I check every day."

"How?" Eir asked, then watched as he stood from the bed and went over to the piece of furniture in the corner up by the front glass wall. When he came back, he handed her a bundle of bound glossy paper that she quickly realized was a calendar.

"Every day, in the evening, I write down what I did that day. I try to write things that are memorable, rather than everyday tasks, and each day before I write something new…well, and usually in the morning, too, I look back over everything I've written and make sure I still remember it."

"That's very clever. Prince Loki was always clever, and that's something that wouldn't have changed, I think, just because your memories are gone. So it worries you? That you might lose more memories?"

"Sometimes," he said after a moment's hesitation, his eyes looking anywhere but at her. He worried more than he was letting on. Loki used to be a much better liar than this, especially when it came to his feelings. As a boy he'd worn his heart on his sleeve, but somewhere along the way, little by little, he'd changed.

Then his eyes snapped back to hers and grew wider, while his breathing began to speed up again. "What's wrong?" she asked as soon as it happened.

"I…I don't remember your name. Was I told it? I think perhaps I heard it…but I don't remember. Was I told it?"

Eir smiled in relief. "I don't remember, either, Lo-, Kendrith. I think perhaps you weren't told it, because we all thought you knew it. And you might have heard it, but that was a traumatic morning for you, and it's understandable that you wouldn't remember. So, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Eir, and I am Asgard's First Healer. The title means that I am in charge of the Healing Room, and all the rest of Asgard's healers. And I have been your personal healer all your life."

"Loki's. But yes. I remember that part. You said so right before you lied about the mole."

"All right. Loki's, if you prefer," Eir said, though this was a strange concept to her. Loki did not stop being Loki by having his memories removed; he was simply Loki with a very specific form of amnesia. And she wasn't certain whether his insistence that they were somehow two distinct people was healthy. But it wasn't her decision to make, and unless a problem was proven to be caused by it, it wasn't her place to argue. "And I do apologize for that. It was the quickest and safest means of proving to your mother that – I'm sorry, to the queen – that you were lying about being another person. Although as it turns out, you weren't entirely lying, in a sense, were you?"

"I was lying…I just…I wanted to say whatever I had to so I could stay safe. You were all so…intimidating."

"Again I apologize. Please try to understand, we didn't know the truth then. If Prince Thor hit you with his hammer, it was because he expected you to fight him as Loki would have. And if your- If Queen Frigga drew a dagger to threaten you, it was because she loves her son fiercely and thought you had harmed him somehow. And as for me, well, I did what I felt was best in a tense situation, but I have never claimed to be perfect."

Loki was looking around the room, his eyes going to the overturned food and furniture, then quickly jumping elsewhere. Eir wondered if it was too much, what she'd said about family he didn't remember and seemed determined to reject.

"Sit down again for me, please?" When he complied, she went up to the front of the cell and lifted his chair from the floor, then placed it by the bed, facing him. She tested it for damage but found it still sturdy, and took a seat, her head at about the same height as his. "Now, can you tell me what upset you so, when the guards sent for me? You don't have to, but perhaps it would help. You can speak freely to me; our discussion will remain private."

Loki took a few deep breaths before beginning, and Eir was struck by how responsive he was to her instructions, far more so than he had been for a long time. "I…I think I made a terrible mistake," he began. "I was…discourteous toward the queen. More than once. And she may be my best chance of getting out of here, though now perhaps Prince Thor will help. But she must have the king's ear. I don't…I can't _bear _it. The thought of being locked up in here for the next hundred and forty-eight years. Can you understand it? I have lived now for fifty-one days. Such a period of time is inconceivable to me. Already my legs ache and my arms feel useless and I yearn for the suns. There's nothing for me to do here. I can sit and stare or I can stand and stare. There are a few books, but I don't want to read them. They were _his _books. There's even a bookmark in one. Shall I begin from Chapter Fourteen? And I am down here with murderers and…and that man who defiled the bodies of his victims," he said, thrusting out an arm to point toward the cell across the corridor, which currently could not be seen. "And they say…I know Loki did terrible things. But I don't remember any of them! My life began in my bed on Alfheim. I know nothing of Jotunheim or Midgard, and very little of Asgard other than this cell. If I could take back what he did, I would. But I can't. I'm not _him._ Why must they punish me for what his crimes? They will chain me up and beat me for his escape, for the guards he injured. Why? _Why_? I just want to go back home. Why can't they just let me go home?" he asked, and continued to ask as Eir leaned forward and held him, and his arms grasped her tightly and he wept on her shoulder.

Less than a minute later, as quickly as he'd returned her embrace, he jerked back from her and clasped his hands over his lap. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Sometimes I…behave inappropriately."

"You did nothing inappropriate, Kendrith. There's nothing wrong with accepting comfort, or with admitting your feelings. Sometimes that's exactly what we need to do," Eir said, looking steadily into Loki's eyes, and feeling as though she were looking into child-Loki's eyes again. In some ways, she supposed, she was.

"Eir," he began, hesitating and wiping his eyes with the hem of his short sleeves, "were we friends?" There was fear in his eyes, and she thought, with some relief, that she knew where it came from. He had rejected his family, and he didn't want to have to reject her, too.

Nor did Eir want that. "Not really," she said, pursing her lips slightly. "You listened to me – _sometimes_ – as your healer." She hoped he might do so again, or at least speak and let her listen. It was obvious that he needed to be able to talk to _someone._

He was clearly relieved, and nodded. "You see, it's the queen. She only sees me as _him_. Even when she asks about me, it's really about him. She asked me about my cooking, and she said I didn't learn to cook as a child. She can never leave him out of it."

"Would it be easier if she did? If she didn't mention him?"

"Yes," he said immediately, then looked down at his hands resting on his thighs. "No. I…Loki didn't want his memories anymore. So I don't want them either. The things that belonged to his life have to stay there. I don't want them in mine. My life has to be my own, not his."

"I suppose I can understand that, sort of."

"Then why can't she?"

"Loki, it's diff- Ah. See, it's difficult for me as well. I look at you, and I see Loki, one of my favorite patients. She looks at you and sees the son she would give her life for. Your rejection cuts her worse than any blade."

He frowned, and she saw his jaw move a few times before he actually spoke. "I don't mean to hurt her. I don't mean to hurt _anyone._ I just can't have her in my life. My life is on Alfheim and has nothing to do with anyone on Asgard."

"That's difficult for her, too. When you were angry at all the Nine Realms, you still loved her. You were always especially close to her." Kendrith was shaking his head, and Eir could tell he was uncomfortable hearing this, so she stopped.

"How much worse have I made things for myself? I forbade her from visiting me two days ago, and I sent her away when she tried again today."

"You mean have you made it less likely you'll be freed?"

He nodded.

"I don't believe it will have any effect. Recall that Loki made a number of poor choices, and some of them hurt his mother deeply. And still she would give her life for him. Kendrith…I consider the queen a friend. And for my friend's sake, I wish you would be kinder toward her. But I don't believe there exist words harsh enough to make her turn her back on you."

"But I don't think she's doing anything to help gain my freedom."

"I don't know about that, and I can't speak for her. I can only tell you that I know she has never stopped loving you."

"She should," he whispered a moment later.

Eir didn't know what to say to that. She loved Loki almost as though he were her own family, but she'd seen firsthand the devastating emotional toll his behavior had taken on Frigga, and she knew Loki wouldn't want that, if he had his memories. In the end, she decided to say nothing at all. Loki needed someone he could talk to freely more than he needed another person trying to influence him.

"May I examine you, Kendrith? I had intended to do so today anyway. Your hands look a little reddened. From the enchanted glass, I imagine?"

He looked down at his hands, then back up at her, and nodded. "Yes, I think so. They went numb earlier," he explained, holding his hands out for her to look at. She took one gently in her own, and began her examination.

* * *

/

_So I was trying to figure out what to do about Ch. 15 "Odin," not done yet but destined to be far too long, and for some reason my brain turned on and I realized I could actually just cut it in half. Have a bit of mercy on me for the next chapter, it wasn't meant to be a chapter on its own, and I'm not sure how well it works on its own. So Ch. 15 will now be "Assembly" and Ch. 16 will be "Odin." But really they could be "Odin Pt. 1" and "Odin Pt. 2."_

_For this chapter, hope you didn't mind this foray into the POV of a non-movie-canon character. This story - at least this half of it - is as much about people's reactions to Loki as it is about Loki himself._

_For the last chapter, thanks again for all your comments, and for your enthusiasm. My reaction to most reviews was: "What? You don't fully trust Loki? Really? Inconceivable!" ;-)_


	15. Assembly

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 15: Assembly**

Thor dismounted near a stream to take a moment to rest, to stretch, to drink water and eat a piece of the smoked fish he'd brought with him. He'd risen early and been riding already half the day. Two moons should be reflecting plenty of light back onto Asgard tonight; if he pushed hard and rode through the night, he thought he might be able to make it by morning.

His stallion was still lazily lapping at the water when he was ready to continue, so Thor forced himself to be patient and wait, to let the horse drink its fill. He was asking much of this four-legged companion; his patience was the least he could give him in return.

He could have gotten there more quickly with Mjolnir, but Thor chose to apply a narrow interpretation of Loki's instructions, and this was how they had made this part of the journey before – on horseback. Thor had not even known how to use Mjolnir to fly yet then. He didn't know if it was important or not, but using Mjolnir would somehow feel like cheating, he thought. Loki had designed this quest, and Thor would follow it to the letter, to the best of his ability.

He walked over to the stream and splashed his face with cool water. He wiped his bare arm across his face and pictured Loki taunting him about grammar. He began to laugh. "I know you're still in there, Loki, no matter what you've learned about your birth, no matter what anger has consumed you. My _brother_. You wouldn't tease me the same way you have for over a thousand years if you weren't." A squirrel on a tree to his right froze and stared at him, then scampered off. Thor's gaze followed it until it disappeared in the tree's crown. He no longer saw it, but it had not ceased to exist.

It all made sense now, he thought as he turned back to the stallion and saw that he had stopped drinking. He mounted again and nudged the horse into motion. He was anxious now, eager to accomplish the next steps. Loki never meant to do this, not really. It was a test. Of course Loki wouldn't trust words. Words had deceived him in life. Actions he would trust.

He'd known it all along. He'd even said so to his friends just the day before – Loki would never do such a thing, not truly. His brother wasn't nearly as strong as him, but when standard sparring rules were relaxed he put up a good fight nonetheless. Loki was tenacious. He was no quitter.

Thor's smile grew and he urged the stallion on faster. Now he was doing exactly what he'd wanted to since Mother had first told them about the memory casket three days ago, on Loki's first day back in Asgard. He would get Loki's memories back to him, whether "Kendrith" wanted them or not. Father could not fault him for it despite his edict, for it was not true coercion. Loki had given him permission to do this from the very beginning. Kendrith was no more than a temporary fiction. _Soon_, Thor thought with no small sense of irony, _Kendrith will be no more than a memory…and a bad one at that_.

/

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_2. Gather supplies and journey to the Sidrin Sands just as we once did. Tell no one._

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Precisely at midday, kitchen staff streamed out of the Assembly Chamber's kitchen in two parallel lines, one for each side of the long table. Odin's plate and goblet were filled last and he was the first to eat, signaling the others to begin, his meat and vegetables still steaming.

The topics of conversation that swirled around the table were carefully chosen; all knew that the actual purpose for the meeting, for which the entire afternoon had been set aside, would not, and should not, surface until the meal was over. Odin listened but participated little, inquiring at one point about the fighters in an informal free weapons sparring competition that had begun that morning. Sif and Hogun, he learned, along with a third name he didn't recognize, had already won their first matches and advanced to the next round. Thor was supposed to fight as well, though he wasn't sure when. Glancing at the empty chair to his right, he hoped it wasn't now. He hoped that Thor had gained a better appreciation for his responsibilities by now. He'd known of this meeting; it had been announced at yesterday's assembly in the throne room.

Odin deliberately dawdled over his desert when it came, forcing the others to do the same, as he stiffly faced directly forward so that his left eye could not see the offending chair on the right. His advisors' conversations grew halting and awkward, punctuated by frequent glances in his direction, and he had to concede that regardless of his delaying tactics Thor was going to be late. Again.

He lifted two fingers of his right hand and made a small sliding motion; instantly servants took away his dish and silverware and began individually querying if the others were done. All likewise surrendered their plates and were left with goblets of wine.

Odin stood to address those gathered. "Before we begin, I wish to remind you: this is my son we speak of here today. No matter what has happened, no matter what he has done, I ask you to remember this in all that you say. This is not the first time we have met to discuss his actions, and Asgard's response to them. Although the final decision remains mine, and the responsibility for it will rest solely on my shoulders, this matter is delicate, and it is my desire that we ultimately find ourselves in unison. But whatever decision results from these assemblies, and whether it be in unison or not, I want no man – and no woman, Eir, Maeva – to leave here with any concern unvoiced. I will hear your agreement on this."

He turned first to his left, where Frigga would be sitting had she chosen to be part of these proceedings, but instead Bragi, his diplomatic advisor, sat. "Yes, Your Majesty."

His eyes found First Healer Eir, on Bragi's left. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Around the table he went, getting an identical answer from each person, until he reached Thor's chair, where his heir should have given the final pledge. His heir, however, had not seen fit to arrive yet. His jaw tightened, but he quickly focused his attention back where it needed to be. "Good. We have thus far heard and discussed your questions and concerns. What is no longer in question is that Loki has been deprived of all his memories of being Loki. Options remain broad. If I deem Loki, absent his memories, no longer guilty of the crimes he has been convicted of, he could simply be pardoned and freed. He could be placed under some form of supervision, under some form of restriction. Requirements of any sort could be laid upon him. If I deem Loki, absent his memories, still guilty of the crimes he has been convicted of, then he can serve his full sentence, or his current condition could be considered a mitigating circumstance and he could serve a shorter or otherwise modified sentence. Finally, if indeed I deem him guilty, then punishment for his escape from prison, bodily harm against three guards, and grave bodily harm against one of those guards must also be determined."

Odin paused and glanced around the table. Some of them were already eager to speak. "I will have order here. Signal your desire to speak, and Bragi will call you out. I put a question to you first: what is just for Asgard?" With that he sat and took a slow deep breath, readying himself to listen.

"Your Majesty," Trade Advisor Krusa began after being recognized by Bragi. "Prince Loki is guilty of serious crimes against Asgard itself. He brought an end to the truce with Jotunheim that you put in place over a thousand years ago."

"Your Majesty," Natural Environment Advisor Vafri said, "We have all heard Prince Thor's testimony that it was not Loki that broke that truce, but Thor himself."

"Not true," Krusa said before he could be recognized. "Prince Thor may have taken the fight to the Frost Giants, but it was Prince Loki who brought them into Asgard, who got them killed along with two of our brave Einherjar, who could never have expected that Frost Giants would simply appear in their midst inside the Weapons Vault."

"You speak of a-"

"Silence," Odin said, interrupting another advisor who spoke without recognition. He was frustrated with the group and their emotional reactions already. He was Loki's own father and managed to keep his emotions perfectly in check. "There are few rules around this table, yet you still cannot manage to keep them." He paused for a moment to let that sink in before continuing. "And we are not here to determine Loki's guilt or innocence at the time of his actions. So I ask you again: what is just for Asgard? What does it mean for Asgard, if Loki, with no memory of having committed the crimes for which he has _already_ been judged guilty, is now judged guilty or innocent?"

The others spoke more hesitantly, now, most not speaking at all, so Odin began to call on them himself. "Bosi?"

"Your Majesty, I…it may be a sign of weakness to release him. It says to others that they can commit heinous crimes and avoid punishment."

The other advisors reacted with nods and frowns, but only one hand came up. "Oblaudur," Bragi recognized.

"You are correct, Bosi. However, in this case, the message sent to others is that you may avoid punishment if you first have all of your memories extracted. I doubt it's a step too many would be willing to take."

Odin watched those around the table; an angry puff of breath from Maeva caught his eye. Asgard's First Master of Magic, after the loss of her father who previously held the post, Maeva almost never spoke up at Assembly unless the subject fell directly under her purview. Odin knew she likely wouldn't now either, unless called upon, so he called on her.

Her eyes snapped up to his, and for an instant he saw anger in them. "Oblaudur described it as a 'step.' Like changing your hair color. Moving away. Putting on a cloak and covering your head. It isn't just a 'step.' I don't know why he did what he did. Perhaps it was desperation, or perhaps it was calculating. But it ended his existence. It isn't a 'step.' It's a punishment. A punishment little different from death. All-Father, Asgard gains nothing by punishing someone who no longer exists."

Odin nodded his acknowledgement, and his appreciation that she'd shared her thoughts despite her reluctance. The question of Loki was perhaps – probably, he thought, given her flash of anger when he'd called on her – still a personal one for her. She was fiery, just as her relationship with his son had once been, as well as strong-willed and bluntly honest. He turned to his law advisor, Finnulfur, sitting next to Thor's still-empty chair, and called on him.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I and my clerks have pored over all the old books, and we can find nothing in the law that addresses such a circumstance. The closest we can come is the clauses on mental incapacity…but…this does not appear to be such a case."

"Eir?" Odin said. "You saw him today. What is his mental state?"

Eir hesitated long enough that Bragi prompted her, and finally she nodded and spoke. "I would not say that he suffers mental incapacity. I would also not say that Prince Loki no longer exists. He is…emotionally immature. Fragile, even. But I recognized things in him that do still exist from before, despite his memory loss. His intelligence. His tendency to do things in a methodical manner. His thoughtfulness. Though I know it to be an oversimplification, in some ways he reminded me of himself as a youth. Compassionate, but with occasional outbursts of anger."

"Then you believe that even without his memories he's still Loki, and should remain in prison?" Bragi asked.

"I didn't say that. If you ask me about his health, I will tell you that the type of confinement he is punished with now, he is not equipped to deal with. I will tell you that I believe it will damage his mind, perhaps badly. If you ask me about justice for Asgard…my king, the wrong done to Asgard, and in Asgard's name, cannot be undone. So long as Asgard has nothing to fear from Prince Loki, or Kendrith as he now calls himself, I don't see how Asgard is either helped or hurt, or frankly affected at all, by his release. But I do not deal in justice, only in healing."

No one had further comment, so Odin next asked what was just for Jotunheim, a realm whose very ground had torn apart beneath the Jotuns' feet, swallowing up an untold number and toppling rock and ice onto countless others. A realm, more than three years later, still beset by famine and civil war. Unsurprisingly, no one was eager to speak up on behalf of the Frost Giants. Odin's frown deepened. "Imagine you are a Frost Giant," he told them, and was rewarded by startled looks and awkward fidgeting, all except from Eir, whose gaze remained steady and who did nothing more than blink. The only other person at this table who knew the truth of Loki's birth, Eir would meet her death before revealing the secret, even through a thoughtless reaction. "Imagine your mother not coming home from the market because she fell into a crevasse opened up by the bifrost. Imagine your child crying endlessly for food you can't obtain. Imagine your dwelling being destroyed because you supported one brother, while your neighbor supported the other. What is just for Jotunheim?"

Bragi, himself a hero of the Ice War, set the example by speaking up. "Your Majesty, I would be angry if the person who did such things to my realm were punished with just two years of a comfortable prison and warm meals."

Chief Einherjar Hergils was recognized. "I would want him to suffer as much as I had suffered. But…I'm not sure whether I would feel the same about this shell of Loki. I would hate him with my every heartbeat for cheapening what he'd done to my people by choosing to simply forget about it."

No one said anything for a while after that.

Old Vafri finally broke the silence. "Has Prince Loki expressed any…particular attitudes toward Jotunheim since the removal of his memories?"

Eir nodded. "He did to me. I cannot betray his confidence, but in short, he expressed no threat or anger toward them at all, or toward Midgard or anyone else. I had the impression he doesn't even know about the Ice War, or any of the history between Jotunheim and Asgard."

"If I were a Frost Giant," Oblaudur said after Bragi called on him, "I would probably be too busy trying to keep my family alive to worry about Prince Loki. I would just want him to leave us alone."

A few minutes later, Odin asked what would be just for Midgard. His response was a series of curious glances around the chamber.

When his question still drew no answer, Bragi leaned toward him. "Your Majesty, we know little of the Midgardians or their attitudes. Few of us have been there since the Ice War."

"And how much do you know of the Frost Giants?"

Chastened, Bragi sat back and nodded. "Almost nothing. Very well. For the Midgardians…it was different. The overall destruction was less widespread. But it was much more personal. Prince Loki went there himself. He took control of the minds of several of them. If I were Midgardian, from their city that suffered the greatest, or from their assembly called SHIELD, I don't think I would want the face of the one who did this to see the sunlight, regardless of whether he remembered doing it."

"I would want revenge," said another.

"I would want to rebuild my life. I would simply want to be certain that the perpetrator could never do such a thing again."

"If he had forced my son to kill his friends, I would not be satisfied with prison."

Odin let them continue until nearly all had spoken and no more hands were lifted. He looked around the room; all eyes were fixed on his. All except Thor's. And Frigga's. "And what is just for Loki?"

No one spoke. No one even moved.

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_Chapter 16 "Odin" and Chapter 17 "Another Casket" are both complete; I'll get Ch. 16 up later today (10/27) probably. Tomorrow at the latest._

_In Ch. 16, a decision has been made..._


	16. Odin

_I know what Odin is in my head, but there's more than one way to interpret Odin in this chapter for sure...suspect the way you already see him will affect how you read this...I'll be curious how you view it._

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**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 16: Odin**

Odin reached the lowest level of cells later than he would have liked. The prisoners' dinner trays had long since been removed, and the cell on the end appeared empty. He stepped through the wall and waited. A minute or two later, Loki appeared in pale gray nightclothes, looking hundreds of years younger and so innocent, an elbow up in the air and a hand down his back under his tunic to scratch. His head was down, and when he looked up a few steps later he drew in a startled breath and quickly jerked his arm down to his side.

Loki – Kendrith – stared at him for a moment before going into a bow from the waist, with slightly hunched shoulders. Odin wondered where he'd gotten it from. "You're doing that incorrectly," he said as Kendrith rose.

He paused partway up, then finished straightening. "I'm sorry. I…I don't know how."

_I'm not surprised that bowing to me is one of the things you've forgotten how to do,_ he thought, bitterness creeping in. Before, he would have said it aloud. Now, he held his tongue, and kept the bitterness at bay. "Shall I show you?"

Kendrith gave an uncertain nod.

"Like this," Odin said, stepping forward until he was right in front of him. He brushed the fingers of his left hand over Kendrick's right knee. "Rest this knee on the floor." Kendrith looked up at him with eyes open, trusting, so innocent, eyes that hadn't looked at him like that in a very long time. He saw other things there as well – fear, nervousness – but he kept his voice gentle and hoped those would fade.

Kendrith barely hesitated before going to one knee as instructed. Odin touched his fingers to Kendrith's. "Make a fist here, and press it over your heart, palm inward." Kendrith did so.

Odin swallowed thickly. Were it not in a prison cell, were Thor there at Loki's side, he could almost imagine his sons were both yet small, and he was showing his eager, energetic boys the proper posture. "_Like this, Father?"_ Thor had asked, doing his best to mimic what he'd seen, while Loki looked at his brother with that impish little smile of his and started to giggle.

"Straight shoulders," Odin said, touching one of Kendrith's, which he quickly adjusted, "and head held high." He watched as Kendrith got himself into perfect position, or close enough. "There are variations, but this will serve you well in most circumstances. Though…I understand you've claimed citizenship on Alfheim?"

"I have, Your Majesty," Kendrith said, his position unchanged.

"Then you need not make the gesture over your heart. If you are no longer a citizen of Asgard, you owe me no pledge of loyalty."

Kendrith looked up at him in marked indecision, fist still over his heart. He had certainly not inherited the penchant for masking his feelings that Loki had learned long ago; his internal struggle played out plainly on his face.

"Rise," Odin said, sparing him the decision.

Back on both feet, Kendrith stood before him awkwardly, hands fidgeting, feet shifting, eyes flickering here and there. Odin noticed him glancing at his eye covering a couple of times, and realized it must look strange to Kendrith, though Loki had never seen him without it since infancy, except once, by accident, when he was still very young.

"You're the only one who hasn't come to see me. Not on your own," Kendrith finally said, his voice tentative. If Loki had ever again felt intimidated by him, he never would have allowed him to see it.

"I haven't been in the habit. Loki didn't want to see me. He was angry with me. And I was angry with him." Odin expected a "why," even saw it on Kendrith's face, but it didn't come. "I need to discuss some things with you, Kendrith. First, I know I had it returned to you yesterday, but I need to take the memory casket back."

Kendrith's throat bobbed. "I don't have it," he said, shaking his head.

Odin's eye narrowed; his voice grew slow and stern. "What did you do with it?"

"I…nothing! It wasn't me. Prince Thor took it. Ask him, he'll tell you it's true."

_Perhaps Thor finally turned up for the assembly after I left,_ he thought. He had gone to speak with Frigga afterward, and in the meantime Thor had probably spoken to the advisors and come to take the casket away himself. "There's no need. I believe you. Sit down now."

Kendrith sat on the bed; there was only the one chair, but Odin ignored it. He'd been sitting all day, and he would not sit for this. "In Asgard, as in other realms, we punish violations of the law for several reasons. We send a message to others who might be tempted to commit the same crimes, that they will suffer the consequences if they do so. We ensure that victims of a crime know that their tormenter also pays a price. We push the criminal to make restitution for his acts. We seek the rehabilitation of the prisoner when possible, beginning with an expression of remorse. And most importantly, we prevent the criminal from repeating his crimes."

"I don't-"

"Do not interrupt me. Before Loki had his memories removed, he was judged guilty of the following. He gave Frost Giants entrance into Asgard to try to steal a powerful relic. They were unsuccessful, but two Asgardian Einherjar died in the attempt. He used the Destroyer, the protector of the Weapons Vault, to try to kill his brother and heir to the throne of Asgard, Thor. He turned the unrestrained power of the bifrost onto Jotunheim in an attempt to destroy the entire realm, killing thousands, if not tens of thousands. He attempted to forcibly subjugate Midgard, removed the free will of eight of its inhabitants, directly or indirectly killed over a thousand, and again attempted to kill Thor. After being imprisoned, he escaped and injured three guards. Do you feel remorse for any of these acts?"

The question, once it sunk in, seemed to galvanize Kendrith, who had gone pale, and whom Odin thought might have collapsed had he not already been sitting down. "Yes," he said, nodding firmly. "I feel remorse for every one of them. I regret them all. I should not have done it. I…Yes, I feel remorse."

"How quickly you learn to lie. You do not feel remorse."

His eyes went wide. "But I do! I do feel it. Deep, terrible remorse."

"You cannot feel remorse for something you don't remember doing. Will you make restitution?"

"Yes! In any form it's asked of me. For the Asgardians, and the Jotuns, and the Midgardians. For all of them. I'll do anything you ask."

"You are asked first for remorse."

The desperation in Kendrith's face turned to horror, and his breathing grew heavy and irregular. Just as Odin began to grow worried, though, he started taking deeper, shuddering breaths and he eventually calmed, his brow still knotted tightly. "Then…I am…to remain here? Six hundred and forty-eight years?"

"No. I cannot ask the impossible of you. You are to be pardoned," Odin said. There was no need to prolong this any further, though he wanted to be sure Kendrith understood.

Kendrith, however, clearly did not understand even the sentence that he'd just heard. He stared up at Odin in confusion. "Pardoned? You… That was a jest?"

"It was not a jest. You have already _been_ pardoned, but the decision will be formalized tomorrow, and you will be free to go where you like, other than Midgard or Jotunheim. You may return to Alfheim if you so choose."

Odin saw Kendrith's body begin to go into motion and he reflexively braced for an attack, but instead his eye went wide as arms wrapped around him in a crushing embrace. "Thank you, thank you," Kendrith again and again breathed against the fabric on his neck. Odin stood there stiffly, awkwardly, listening to the words, feeling the warmth of the breath and the unashamed arms around him. The person pressed against him was a stranger, yet so familiar. Loki had been such an affectionate child. He'd loved to be held, cuddled, hugged. How long had it been now, since those arms had wrapped around him in such intense emotion? How long since those arms had wrapped around him at all? Decades? Centuries? His arms slowly began to rise. To Loki's back. To Loki's head. He used to love patting that striking black hair…

Before his arms could reach their destinations, Loki wrenched his away and stepped back until the back of his legs pressed against the bed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Your Majesty," he added.

Odin released a shaky breath, and by the time it was out he had recovered from the lapse. He needed to finish explaining to Loki. _Kendrith,_ he corrected himself, perhaps not as fully recovered as he'd so quickly assumed. "Your continued imprisonment would serve no purpose. You cannot express remorse for or be rehabilitated from crimes you don't remember. Others are unlikely to follow in Loki's footsteps and pay such a high price simply to avoid prison. And your restitution would mean little in the absence of remorse. Anger and revenge…these are insufficient reasons to keep you here." _And there has already been far, far too much anger._ "That leaves only the most important concern, prevention of future crimes. The Assembly is agreed that there is a risk that you seek a pardon, only to undergo a reverse procedure to have your memories reinstated, thus evading all justice. Because you have never shown any remorse for your actions, there is little doubt that you would commit future crimes in such a scenario."

"I swear-"

"You swear too lightly. Do not swear. There is no need. This is why we have retrieved your memory casket. So long as you agree to let it remain here in Asgard's possession, we can assure our own people, and those of Jotunheim and Midgard, that you remember neither your crimes nor your reasons for them, and are thus highly unlikely to repeat them. Do you agree to this condition?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. Gladly. I don't want it anymore, anyway," Kendrith said eagerly.

"There are other conditions."

"Anything," Kendrith said before Odin could continue.

"You should never agree to something before you know the terms. You will-"

"If your terms mean my freedom, then I don't care what they are."

Odin stared and waited until he saw the moment of Kendrith's realization.

"I interrupted. I apologize, Your Majesty."

Odin nodded. "You will be under Heimdall's supervision for the remainder of your original sentence of one hundred and fifty years. He will see you no matter where you are, and he will report to me or to Thor any sign of a return to the crimes of your past. Lastly, during this same period you may not conceal yourself from Heimdall's gaze. If found to be doing so, or if you flagrantly violate the law, you will be apprehended, your pardon will be nullified, you will serve your full sentence, and the matter of your attack on the guards during your escape will be revisited. If you make no breach of these terms, then once the period of your original sentence has passed, the pardon will become final and irrevocable. Do you agree?"

"I agree to it all. I don't even know how to conceal myself from Heimdall."

"Then you will have no trouble with that condition."

A look of confusion passed over Kendrick's face, and he suddenly swiped his hand in front of him, thumb and fingers together as though gripping something.

"I tell you you mustn't conceal yourself and it's the first thing you do?" Odin asked. _A sign of his former mischief? His chafing at being told no?_

"I didn't mean to. I swear it. It was just…instinctive. But I don't think it worked, regardless."

"You are unable to use magic in here. But I don't doubt that it's an instinctive act. Loki first learned to do that when he was still in his youth. Can you resist that instinct in order to fulfill this condition?"

"I can," he said with a solemn nod.

"I ask you again then: do you agree to all terms?"

"I do."

"Then once some formalities are taken care of, your conditional pardon will go into effect tomorrow. Do you know where you wish to go?"

"Yes, back home to my cottage…is it still habitable? My cottage on Alfheim?"

_Home. On Alfheim._ "It has been badly damaged. I will see that repairs are made. Do you need any form of assistance? Money? A horse? Other resources?"

"I…no. I don't need anything from you."

"Your circumstances are unique. There's no shame in asking for or receiving assistance. It isn't support from a family, but payment for damage to your home, for your imprisonment, for the harm done to the garden you labored over. Surely there's something we can do for you in compensation."

Kendrith thought it over for a moment before responding. "If my home is repaired, and if _Prince Thor_ would pay me for the damage he did to my garden, then I would neither ask for nor accept anything else."

"All right. But if you do think of something else, you may request it tomorrow. You will leave around midday, morning at your destination. Do you have any questions?"

"No," he said after a moment's consideration.

"Then I shall see you tomorrow," Odin said, turning and leaving Kendrith, still sitting on the bed. He felt a pull, as he often did around Loki, that he should say something more. He wasn't sure what, though, or what Kendrith would be willing to hear; in that sense, nothing had changed. In the end, he paused just in front of the glass wall and looked back. "I'll tell the guards to keep your cell sealed off for your privacy. Sleep well, Kendrith."

/

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Kendrith watched the king go, and kept watching long after he'd gone, even after the corridor descended into darkness. His own lights dimmed, and he assumed Odin had meant that no one would be able to see into his cell now, just as he could no longer see beyond it. _Privacy,_ he thought, repeating the word several times in his mind, then once aloud. He had missed it. Hated the guards, any visitors, the prisoners across from him all being able to see anything he did unless he hid in the cramped bathroom. He pictured himself back in his cabin, in his small bedchamber. He slept with the door shut, the curtains closed. He liked privacy. He would have it all the time now. _Except for Heimdall._ It was eerie, really, to think that that stern man at the bifrost would be watching him all the time from here on out, for long enough that to Kendrith it was synonymous with "forever," but he wouldn't _see_ the eyes on him, so he supposed he would get used to it, perhaps even forget about it, eventually.

Heimdall's eyes were nothing. The tiniest intrusion into his privacy. He would sacrifice it in a heartbeat for the most important thing of all: _freedom_. "Freedom," he whispered.

His posture had slumped while sitting on the bed, staring vacantly at the opaque glass, but now he drew up straighter and twisted to the left, toward the little desk in the corner. He got up and went to it, taking the calendar that rested atop it. With some effort in the low light he read through his previous entries, every one of them from Alfheim bringing a smile to his face. Even the ones from Asgard weren't so bad, now that they traced the story of his eventual release.

He picked up the pen. _Lost temper,_ he wrote, and kept going. _Met Eir (nice; slow deep breaths help). Odin…_ Kendrith paused, the pen hovering over the paper. He didn't know what to write. By habit and by necessity – the boxes were not very large – he wrote only short phrases here, designed to check his memory and track who he had met and what he had learned. But about this encounter he could write a novel. He didn't know where to begin; he didn't know which details to include.

In the end, he left it as it was, just the name. He knew what he would be writing tomorrow.

_Freedom._

He carefully placed the calendar back on the desktop, perfectly centered on the small square surface. He walked back over to his bed, climbed in, pulled the covers up over his chest. He stared at the featureless white ceiling. He closed his eyes and imagined he was lying in his own bed back on Alfheim, as he had done on each of his three other nights here.

This time he smiled, because tomorrow night it would be real.

He wept tears of relief and joy until he felt nothing but tired and empty, and then he fell asleep.

/

* * *

/

"He isn't in his chambers. The Einherjar haven't seen him. It seems Kendrith is the only one to have seen him all day. He retrieved the memory casket."

Frigga, already in bed and lying on her side, didn't respond.

"Sif was looking for him, too. I asked her to find him. Perhaps she can talk some sense into him. I thought he had finally finished his growing up. But he hasn't shirked his responsibilities this thoroughly in centuries."

"Yes, he has," Odin heard his wife say, though she remained still under the golden sheet and soft brown fur, even her lips barely moving.

"He never showed up at the assembly at all, Frigga. The issue at hand was hardly a trivial one."

"Did you order him to attend it?"

"No."

"Then don't blame him for this. I didn't go either."

"You…are his mother."

"And you are his father," she said sharply.

Odin stood at the foot of the bed and watched, but there was nothing to see. Frigga still hadn't moved, other than a slight furrowing of her brow. She didn't fall into such moods often, but when she did, he had no idea what to say to her, and rarely understood what she said to him. "Your point?" he finally asked.

She sighed, and he found the movement in her shoulders, visible above the covers, a strange comfort. "I'm not sure I have one. I'm upset." She twisted around to a seated position abruptly, throwing the covers off her. "Why can't we just make him remember? He wouldn't behave like this if he remembered. Loki _knows_ I love him. We have the memory casket. We could work together. Your magic is stronger with Gungnir, but I know Loki's magic better. Together surely we could break whatever enchantment he put over the casket. And that sham of a healer, Landis, he said it would be difficult. Not impossible. I want my son back, Odin."

"I know," he said, going around the bed to her side and perching on the edge. He still wore his formal attire; only his cape had been removed. "But it isn't what _he_ wants."

"He doesn't _know_ what he wants!" she shouted.

He blinked in surprise at the sudden outburst. He kept his own voice soft, and as reasonable as he could. "Loki's letter to you stated very clearly what he wanted, and Kendrith has expressed the same wishes. You would ignore that?"

"Yes," she answered immediately. "Yes! How can you just accept it?"

Odin considered his next words carefully. His wife was being irrational. He couldn't indict her for it, but neither could he indulge her. Words came and went, rejected, through his mind. "Because I am his father," he said in the end.

Frigga's eyes flashed in anger, and she threw herself back down flat on the bed, this time on her other side, facing away from Odin.

The wrong thing to say, then. He stood and went to undress and change for the night. It wasn't as though there had been a right thing to say.

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/

_Chapter 17 "Another Casket" features all of our canon characters (Odin, Frigga, Loki - sort of, Thor, Sif, Volstagg, Hogun, Fandral, Heimdall). Maybe one or two unexpected things._

_Thanks as always for reading, reviewing, favoriting, following - for sharing your enthusiasm and thoughts. 'Til next time! (And don't get used to this two chapters in one day thing.) ;-)_


	17. Another Casket

_Just in case you missed it, on Oct. 28 I actually released two chapters on the same day. If you only read one, you should go back and read Ch. 16 before continuing on._

_/_

* * *

**_The Memory Casket_**

**Chapter 17: Another Casket**

"Who exactly was it that decided we were cleaners and carpenters and masons?"

"The All-Father," Volstagg answered, turning to Fandral and taking the opportunity to rest from his struggle to get the door hung on the hinges he'd installed.

"Perhaps he only meant for us to provide protection for the actual builders from whatever wild things call those woods over there home," Fandral said, leaning against a corner at the front of the house on the side where the woods were, and where a wall was being rebuilt under moonlight and magically-lit powerful lamps. In his right hand he held a trowel with a dollop of wet sand-and-lime pale gray mortar.

"This is Thor's fault," Hogun said, stopping near Fandral with a wheelbarrow stacked high with heavy stones.

"You're just in a dour mood. If you're going to just stand there, come over here and help me keep this door steady."

Hogun exchanged a quick look with Fandral then went over to assist Volstagg.

"Hogun's right. The All-Father was looking for Thor, not us," Fandral said.

"Thor destroyed Loki's dwelling, not us," Hogun said, once they got the door in place. "Loki tried to kill us all, and now we're repairing his home."

Fandral joined the other two to stand in front of the door, and watched as Volstagg tested its fit. "It's a good thing Sif wasn't with us. She might have refused the command."

"Sif has a temper but she is loyal to the All-Father and knows better than to refuse his command. And you two had better watch your tongues. _Heimdall_," Volstagg said, mouthing the last word voicelessly. The last thing he – or any of them, of course – needed was to wind up in the middle of a family conflict; it was bad enough skirting the edge of one the last time. An angry Odin was not a sight he cared to see again, not if it were directed at him.

"I doubt he has much sympathy for Loki, actually," Fandral said.

Satisfied that the door functioned properly, Volstagg closed it and leaned against the wall beside it. "Does anything here remind you of the Loki we know? Toiling over a vegetable garden? Cooking? Cleaning? Did you see the written instructions for how to clean the windows? Loki doesn't remember his former life. He doesn't remember betraying Thor, or freezing Heimdall, or sending the Destroyer after us. He's our prince. He was our king. Our _legitimate_ king, as we know now, or have you forgotten? And the All-Father himself told us to do this. He also told us to finish by an hour past daybreak. Now shall we keep on chattering like children or shall we get back to work?"

"All right, all right," Fandral said, glancing down at the mortar that was already beginning to dry on his trowel. "It's just that I had _plans._"

Volstagg rolled his eyes. Fandral had begun whining about his _plans_ almost as soon as the All-Father had disappeared around the corner in the Feasting Hall where they'd been engaging in some late-evening revelry.

"I don't trust him," Hogun said with one last grim look.

Fandral and Hogun had almost reached the corner when the construction chief came bustling around, drawing to a quick halt when he almost ran into the two men. "Hogun, we need more stones. And Fandral, this mortar isn't going to lay itself."

Volstagg could hear Fandral's dramatic sigh even over the crickets chirping in the night. He frowned, thinking back to what he'd heard of Loki at the assembly they'd accompanied Thor to. No deception was apparent in any of it. He wanted to trust Loki. He _liked_ Loki. Usually. Sometimes, at least. Loki had spirit and a quick wit. He was clever, resilient, and endlessly creative. And as much as he teased him for it, he appreciated Loki's silver tongue. He wanted to trust Loki, but Loki was also manipulative, loved playing tricks, and held a grudge like no one else he'd ever known. And with whatever had happened when the All-Father went into the Odinsleep and Loki was made king, his occasional vindictive streak had grown into full-fledged cruelty. He didn't quite trust Loki.

/

* * *

/

Dawn broke over Asgard with the Sidrin Sands in sight, a shimmering emptiness on the horizon. A shallow brook wound lazily through scrubland; Thor remembered it from long-ago journeys here. He whispered apologies to his stallion as he tied him on a long rope to the one tree in the vicinity, its roots stretching down into the water. He'd pushed the animal hard, and now he was leaving him here. At least the water was sufficient, and though the grasses were sparse, the length of the rope would allow for grazing.

He refilled the canister of water he'd emptied, then set off at a jog. Soon enough he'd be forced to slow his pace. Signs of life grew more and more infrequent, and when he realized his steps now required more effort and indeed he could not maintain his pace, he looked down and realized it had happened so gradually he hadn't even noticed – he'd entered the Sands.

He paused, looked around him, took a drink of water. The sun was rising. The Sidrin Sands was not a true desert, not like what was found on some of the other realms. It was created during the rule of his grandfather Bor, following a period of time when this region had been heavily mined with an eye toward speed. Prioritizing speed over the welfare of the land and the people it supported was foolish in a realm where lives were long and what was not accomplished today could generally be accomplished just as well tomorrow with little consequence, and Bor and his advisors – so the story went – had quickly realized the error. While other areas of damaged land were restored, the Sidrin Sands, once the Sidrin Gorge, was deliberately left as it was and further deprived of precipitation to maintain it. Insects and the occasional small animal lived on the periphery, but in the central area where Thor was headed, nothing lived.

That had been the whole point.

Thor set off again. It would be another day's walk, depending on the condition of the sand and the dunes, until he reached his destination.

/

* * *

/

_3. Enter the Sands on foot, and locate the exact spot where you learned to control lightning._

/

* * *

/

Sif rode down the bifrost, forcing herself to keep the horse at a reasonable pace. She was worried. She'd looked for Thor last night in several places she knew him to frequent, but found neither him nor anyone who'd seen him since the day before. She thought perhaps he might have gone to some tavern disguised, seeking to drown his sorrows and frustrations without drawing attention, and eventually she'd given up.

She'd dawdled over breakfast and eventually made her way to his chambers, only to be informed by the guard on his floor that he'd never returned after leaving early yesterday morning. It occurred to her that he might have also found a woman to drown his sorrows and frustrations with, but she quickly dismissed the thought. He remained oddly attached to the mortal woman he'd gotten to know while banished to Midgard a few years ago, she knew, and Thor was loyal to a fault.

Approaching Heimdall had been a difficult decision. The gatekeeper's role was protecting Asgard, not keeping track of its inhabitants. He watched what he deemed needed watching, and that would not normally include Thor. Still, his gaze fell everywhere eventually, and his sight was keen – if searching, he would find. That was not the real obstacle. Her greater concern was that Heimdall would be well within his rights to refuse to tell her Thor's location, once he found him.

"You seek Prince Thor?" Heimdall asked when Sif dismounted and crossed the small remaining distance between them.

"I do," Sif confirmed. She wondered if perhaps he kept track of Asgard's inhabitants more than she'd thought, and Volstagg was right after all.

"I began searching for him when I saw you approach. He is not in any of the places I might expect to find him, but I know that he has not left Asgard. You may wait, if you wish, while I look," Heimdall offered, his face and posture as forbidding and stern as ever.

"You'll tell me where he is?" she asked, to confirm what she thought she understood.

"I will."

He said nothing further as Sif stood there a few minutes feeling increasingly awkward. Eventually she moved over to the edge of the bridge, lowered herself to its surface and sat, swinging her legs over the edge. She knew she was probably overreacting. But the All-Father himself had asked her to track Thor down and 'talk some sense into him.' And it was Loki who sometimes used to disappear for days on end without word to anyone. Never Thor.

_I'm sure it's nothing, _she thought. Still, she waited for Heimdall's response.

/

* * *

/

Kendrith rose early and prepared for the day. The arrival of breakfast was startling, for he hadn't seen the guard approach with it; the two glass walls of his cell were still opaque. He sat down to eat it, relieved that Threk could not even watch his back this time, and ate every bite, careful not to spill a single drop of juice or let a single crumb mar his clothes or the floor. He left the tray on the ledge, debating for at least two minutes the most convenient position of it for the guard to retrieve it. Today he would give no one cause to be upset with him. He would not give the king or anyone else cause to reverse the decision to free him.

He was full of nervous, unspent energy, and briefly wondered how Loki had burned it off, locked in here for so long. _Plotting his escape, most likely,_ he thought with a frown before turning his thoughts back to himself. He wanted to pace, but instead sat back down on his chair and forced himself to stay still. This afternoon, he could run laps around his cottage, or run all the way to town and back, if he wanted. He contented himself with that thought, and waited, hands folded over his lap.

The breakfast tray was taken, and later the lunch tray arrived. Kendrith by that point had moved to the desk and drawn out a detailed map of the town market and was working on extending it out beyond the boundaries of the market into the surrounding town. It was as much to keep his mind occupied as to perform another check on his memory. He carried his chair back over to the small round table and sat down to eat. Having eaten the entire breakfast, he wasn't terribly hungry, but he made himself eat it all anyway, with just as much care as he had his breakfast.

He had just managed the last bite when the king stepped through the glass; he hastily put the fork down and stood.

"Are your belongings packed?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said, glancing over to the bed, which he'd neatly made, and where his bag rested at the foot.

"Good. Bring it, and give it to the guard."

"I…I can carry it," he said.

"You can, but the guard will. We have a stop to make before we go to the bifrost."

Kendrith nodded. He went to the bed, took the bag, and at the king's signal, followed him to the glass. The king went right through; Kendrith reached out a hesitant finger. It passed through. His smile took over his face and he laughed in uncontrolled delight which died away instantly at the fury on the face of the guard standing just outside the cell, the same one who'd gotten so angry with him yesterday after he'd made a mess. He handed the bag over reluctantly. His calendar was in there, one of his most cherished possessions. The guard left, and Kendrith nervously watched him go.

"Let's go. We have a long walk."

Kendrith nodded again and followed Odin along staircases and tunnels and corridors, passing guards who went to a knee before the king just as he'd shown him, then glared at Kendrith. He fixed his eyes on a spot on the back of Odin's gray-haired head and did not allow himself to look elsewhere. It was better this way, regardless. Curious though he was about this realm, and the parts of it he was seeing now that he hadn't before, his instructions were clear. _Do not look back._

The king, he noted, was dressed more casually today than he was yesterday, a tunic and vest, the leather pants that seemed the norm here, all of it in shades of brown and gold. Kendrith was glad to have left all of Loki's things behind, all except the boots he wore because he still had only shoe of his own, and the leather vest that Loki had left in the cottage, which made him assume it was all right for him to keep. He wore a high-collared short-sleeved indigo shirt, his favorite, tucked into black pants, one of only two pairs of pants he had here. He liked these because they hid reasonably well the damp smudges of black dirt gained from getting down on his knees in the garden.

Neither man said a word, and Kendrith didn't look up from Odin's head until in his peripheral vision he realized they were approaching the two most enormous doors he'd ever seen. Immediately after glancing up at them, he realized it wasn't so much his peripheral vision that had alerted him as the crackling energy of powerful magic. The doors opened before them and they walked through; Kendrith felt the energy buzzing and tickling all over his skin. It then occurred to him that he must have the use of magic back again, and he raised a hand to do something – he didn't know what, most often when he called on magic he did it with no forethought whatsoever, purely on instinct, as he'd told the king yesterday – but he caught himself in time and put the hand back down. He'd wanted to test it, this returned ability, but there would be time for that back on Alfheim.

For now, he had to look down instead at the king's head. They were going down stairs made of dark stone, many of them, and when they reached the bottom, he forgot entirely that he was not supposed to be looking around him. Dark gray walls rose up from the side and angled inward, and as they walked, on either side they passed alcoves that held strange and intriguing objects, things that drew him and made him want to know more, made him subconsciously lean backward to be able to look at them just a moment longer as they continued forward. It felt like his entire body vibrated from the magic that covered and filled this chamber, that extended outward from each of those objects, each one "tickling" him in its own unique way.

The king stopped and Kendrith, so absorbed in the alcoves on his left and right, barely avoided walking right into him. He stepped to the side, leaving Kendrith facing the most stunning object he'd ever seen. Magic rolled off it in crashing waves. The shape was roughly rectangular but far more complex, with curves and arches and etched metal work, and inside it was blue light that danced and flickered and shifted and sang a mesmerizing song of power.

He forgot everything but the shimmering light and literally jumped back when the king said his name. He saw now that the queen had followed them in; he'd never even noticed her presence. He thought perhaps he'd startled her, for she looked nervous and moved closer to the king.

"There's something you need to know about yourself, Kendrith," the king said.

He glanced between the king and queen. "No. Please, I don't want to know any-"

"I understand that you don't want to know about Loki's life. But there's one thing you must know, lest you discover it later on your own under other circumstances."

"I told you that I didn't give birth to you," the queen said then. "You weren't born on Asgard at all, Loki. You were born on Jotunheim. You were born a Jotun. We raised you as our own. We never-"

"Frigga," the king interrupted. She glanced at him, pressed her lips together, and fell silent. Kendrith was grateful. He'd been growing interested…to put it mildly.

He started to laugh. "Am I dreaming? This is all a dream, isn't it?" He'd had some strange dreams since being brought here, mostly nightmares about people surrounding him and staring at him, some of Threk leaning over him and planning unspeakable things – Kendrith never knew _what_ things exactly, only that they were unspeakable. None of his dreams had been anything like this. But it had to be a dream, because… "Aren't they tall?" he asked a moment later. "I mean, they're called 'giants.'"

"They are," the king acknowledged. "But you aren't. This is the Ice Casket, also known as the Casket of Ancient Winters. It's a powerful relic that originated with the Frost Giants," he said, placing a hand over the vessel with its writhing blue light. As entranced as he'd been by it just a moment ago, he'd utterly forgotten about it until it was called to his attention. "Put your hands around the grips on the sides. But do not lift. You would be harmed."

Kendrith looked at him with confusion, arching an eyebrow; the queen choked back a sob for some reason. The king nodded, so he turned back to face the object, the Ice Casket. From the angle he looked at it, he hadn't even realized there were grips on the sides, but he put both hands forward and easily found them. He placed his palms over them and curled his fingers around and under and instantly felt the magic coursing through him. "It holds great power," he said, forcing his gaze away from it to turn back to the king. He wasn't sure what this was supposed to mean to him, something to do with Loki, he assumed, but he hoped they weren't going to tell him more. This was already far too much. Somehow he knew he should never have seen this casket.

"It does," Odin said. "And its magic interacts with you in a unique way, because of your origins."

He cast the king another confused look, then turned again to the Ice Casket. He'd intended to let go of it, but what he saw made him suck in a breath and grip it all the harder. A deep blue was nearly to his elbows and travelling up his arm fast. In less than a second it had reached his sleeve, and he stared a moment longer before finding his voice. "It turned me the color of my shirt."

No one responded, so a moment later he looked up at them, only to find them staring at him – not his arms, but his face. "What?"

"You don't recall what a Jotun looks like?" the queen asked.

He shook his head, not trusting his voice with the way they stared at him, as though they'd never seen him before, especially the queen.

"The Jotuns' skin doesn't come in the colors of the Aesir. Or the Ljosalf. It is a deep blue. A beautiful blue. Like yours," she said.

Kendrith looked down at his arms again in curious fascination. "This is…my natural color?"

"It is," he heard her say.

_How strange,_ he thought. He'd known early on that he looked different from the Light Elves, with his paler skin and rounded ears. But this blue was _very _different. He abruptly let go of the casket and put his hands up to his ears. They felt a little rougher, perhaps, but the shape seemed the same. He noticed then that the blue was receding from his slightly tanned but still pale arms. _Not permanent then, just a temporary side effect of touching the Ice Casket._

"Do you have any questions?" the king asked.

_More than I would be able to ask in a lifetime,_ he thought. "No," he said.

"Very well. We can-"

"Odin, we can't just-"

"We can go to the bifrost now."

Kendrith nodded; he had little curiosity left to spare for whatever had passed between them. He took a last long look at the Ice Casket, then resolutely put his back to it and waited for the king and queen to get a few steps ahead of him before he followed them out, locking his eyes straight ahead of him.

* * *

/

_Thanks for all your kind comments! "Guest" (10/30) let us know Eir's in TDW, ha, no kidding! I didn't know that. I hope she's something like I've conceived of her. Counting down the days now until I can see it myself._

_In the next chapter, tentatively titled "Alone," Kendrith and Thor make progress toward their goals._


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